Whether working with your first agility dog or your fifth, the right foundation can play a huge role in your team's success. Join us for a conversation on how to build the skills you'll need as a team... even if you have minimal access to equipment.
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 I'll be talking to Lauriei Houston about teaching. Teaching your dog the foundations for agility. Hi, Laurie. Welcome back to the podcast.
Laurie Huston: Hi, Melissa. Thank you for having me.
Melissa Breau: Absolutely. Did I remember how to pronounce your last name right?
Laurie Huston: It's kind of like Houston, like in Texas, but it's spelled different.
Melissa Breau: Okay, so more like Houston, less like Houston. Got it. So to start us out, do you want to just remind everybody a little bit kind of about you?
Laurie Huston: My name is Laurie. I live on the west, kind of westernmost province in BC in Canada, B.C. and I am in kind of the Kooteney region, which is a mountainous region of our province.
And I have a Labrador and a border collie that I do primarily agility with. But we like, we dabble in disc, we dabble in nose work, we dabble in tricks, a little bit of some rallies. So kind of we're just addicted to training like everybody else with the funsy. Yeah, that's, that's us.
Melissa Breau: Awesome. So I know you've been doing this agility thing for a little while now. So what do you, you know, see or consider to be a strong foundation for a team that's hoping to do agility or kind of a future agility team?
Laurie Huston: Well, I think it's kind of the same with all dog sports that like, for me, like, relationship kind of falls above all else. When we're starting with that foundation, it's all about kind of developing that communication system so that we can learn how to read our dogs so that we kind of know when they're comfortable, we know when they're confident. We can recognize if they're frustrated or confused or that stress is sneaking in.
I think this is kind of like a time to start really building strong routines. I think it's so much easier to work on that stuff before they actually get addicted to the sport. Once they're addicted, kind of those kind of more boring, slower sort of skills get harder because they're like, no, just give me the hit. And of course, kind of understanding reinforcement, like what it is when it's happening, when it's available.
All of those things I think are kind of the really big ones that I know when I started out, there wasn't a lot of importance placed on that sort of stuff. And it's just every consecutive dog I've got, it has grown kind of higher on my list of priorities.
Melissa Breau: I know you kind of try to balance both function and fun in your approach, so can you talk to me a little bit about that? Why do you feel like those two need to go together, maybe especially at this foundation stage?
Laurie Huston: Yeah, I think. And this, like, guilty 100% myself. I think it's so easy to get caught up in all the exciting bets. Like, they're. They're just so much fun. And what ends up happening is some of those less exciting bits of the smaller pieces, they end up getting left behind or missed.
So I think kind of layering those functional pieces into the fun things, that's where the magic happens. I look at the dogs that I've had and, like, Tweek was like, she was a super quick learner, and it was exciting because she did everything really fast. So it was very exciting. It was very exciting for me. But in her hate, like, she was so busy and so fast that she ended up missing little pieces.
Hers were mostly biomechanics that she missed that I didn't really know enough about it until I started getting geekier and geekier and started working with some people who did biomechanics stuff to start realizing that, oh, wow, there are pieces that she's missing. And then for her, arousal was a big one. She had lots of frustration sneaking in, so there was lots of extra behaviors that ended up sneaking into our stuff.
Scream, barking, being one of those. So fun. Yeah, so fun. And then I got Buck, and Buck was, like, very different from Tweek and very different from the dogs that I had before. But he also struggled to put things together, but for different reasons. Like, he's large, so for him, learning to use his body was like, it was hard. It was really hard. And the splits just weren't fine enough for him to figure it out on the level they needed to.
So really, primarily the. The things that I've built this, my foundation program more now have been about how could I have split things finer for those types of dogs to make them understand it better. Because I don't think we really know when we get our puppies that they're gonna be like that. They're gonna end up like that. That they may or they may not. But, like, I think focusing on those things, whether or not they're going to end up like a really high drive dog or a really low drive dog, that helps them, regardless of where they end up on that big spectrum, all of those skills help them.
So I kind of started thinking, like, okay, how can we split these really, really small? And then in splitting them really, really small made me realize, like, you don't really like to really teach those specific skills. There's really not a lot of equipment needed. And then we can look at layering that equipment in after the fact. It's kind of like just. It's just another layer, right? It's just another layer of distraction to the behavior and having it off.
Agility skills makes it so much more accessible to everybody and easier to work on generalizing and distraction training because I don't know about everybody, but, like, I certainly not going to load a dog, walk up in my car and drive it to the park to do some generalization training. That would be impressive. But, like, I can totally chuck a cato board in my car and run down to the park and do some generalization work.
Or I can. I can take it to like a friend's house or like, it's just more portable. What are the first movement patterns or handling habits that you focus on with new students? Well, we have two aspects of that. We have two partners in each team. Some of the things that I focus on are more dog specific, and some of them are more handler specific, and some of them are both.
I think for the dog end of the team, I really focus a lot on body awareness. I want to teach them all about their parts and how to use them, how to access them. At that point, I can really pay attention to, like, side preferences and weaknesses so that we can start to balance those out before we start layering them onto equipment, before they start to make those compensating behaviors, before they start adding those into their chain of behaviors.
So that's kind of something I really focus on with the dog and the new humans. Like, lots of people are like, starting on their second or third dog, but for those of them that are like brand new, it's really helping them focus on their mechanics, like, and throughout, like in marking and rewarding their handling skills and kind of get them like, really intentionally practicing without their dogs. Because our dogs add so much more pressure than we realize.
They just make everything harder, especially when they're screen barking. But if we can. Or just moving super fast. Yeah, or just moving super fast. But if we can take that time and kind of practice without them, then when we layer the dogs into the picture, we can move that little bit more clearly, that little bit more fluidly and have to think just a little bit less. And then kind of with dogs and people kind of focusing on areas that kind of get overlooked.
Things like incorporating, waiting and transports right into that learning. And I do that using loops because those loops help us learn to listen, read and respond to our dogs. And they're also so amazing, amazing at keeping all that extra stuff out. The things that we don't want. Now, whether that's like sniffing and wandering off or that barking and spinning and screaming that I was talking about, it can look different for different dogs.
But when we don't kind of focus on working in loops, it's so easy for those things to sneak in and us not to even really recognize them or see them until they end up becoming a problem. And I've just found that adding those loops in and utilizing that kind of waiting and those transports which aren't super exciting, like who wants to work on loose leash walking or healing or waiting on a station?
That's not super exciting. But we can work that into our loops so that it starts and it finishes in the same place. And there's really a lot of clarity and consistency around what we're doing and it really brings down those extra behaviors. What's kind of one movement based or handling based game that you like to use in foundation training that always seems to help the team. Oh, you're gonna make me narrow it down to one thing.
You can share more than one if you want to, but ask for one. Okay. I really love foundations, and I think everything can be traced back to foundations. And we're best if we keep revisiting those things right through our dog's entire career. It really helps keep their skills sharp, like to the point that I play variations of these games even with my seasoned dogs because they translate so well.
They're easy to do at home, easy to take on the road, and. And I can play them in winter. I don't know about everybody else, but where I am, we get winter. So my most of my agility equipment is already tucked away in a bin. I don't get to see it now until spring. So to have something that I can play with in the snow is kind, kind of important.
I guess one thing that I really like breaking out is contact behavior and then really splitting it down fine and focusing on like layering in all those kind of like distractions and generalizations. And when I say contact behavior, like when I start dogs out, I do both mat work and rear foot targeting, regardless of kind of the end behavior that I want. Because I think that those, those offer the dog skills that they need.
No matter what you end up wanting with contact behavior, like rear foot targeting, like really teaches their dog about their rear end, how to engage it and how to move it very specifically. And our dogs are so naturally front foot oriented and front body oriented that I think teaching them to like, access their rears is so important. It just helps them move better, avoid injury. And then mat work, which lots of people think of as like specific running dog walk training.
I think that teaches our dogs, like stride adjustment and how to hit a target motion. And they don't just need that for contact behavior. Like they need it for jumping, they need it for turning. There's just those two things like mat work and rear foot targeting. I think those are really fun for me to play with.
Melissa Breau: So how do you maybe help students take something that's, you know, a service level competence. The dog can kind of do the obstacles into like, real readiness to handle like those variable environments they're actually going to see when they get to a trial?
Laurie Huston: Yeah, that's, that's kind of like again, like you're hitting all of my favorite geeky things. Is kind of starting to layer in that generalization and those distractions right from the start. Like, so get those skills and then we start showing them those skills layered in with other things, layering them in very strategically so that we can set them up to succeed.
Like, we want to layer those things in like one thing at a time. Like, show them like those motion changes, show them those position changes, but separately. Add some noise to the environment, but nothing else. Add some dogs to the environment, but nothing else. People get them. Even if it's just in different areas on your property or even within your house, if it's raining and gross or snowing, even just going from downstairs to upstairs to the basement to the bedroom, those are differences and they help our dog to, to generalize.
I've set it up to do a lot of that in this course because it is a big piece of how I'm approaching my foundation is like not waiting really is starting to layer those differences in very soon. Like just those really subtle differences.
Melissa Breau: So having worked with lots of different breeds, sizes, dogs, drives all those fun things, thinking about all of the pieces you've just been talking about.
How do you tailor that to really fit the team in front of you?
Laurie Huston: Yeah, it was really hard for me to try and rein my brain in on foundations. And what I ended up coming in with was that I didn't really rein myself in, but. I know, fair enough. But the course in my idea, the way that I think of it is. The course is a framework, and I really can't stress enough that it's not about keeping up with the exercises.
It's about kind of learning to read and listen to your dogs and learning how to respond and to see when they're ready to move on and to respect them. They might not be ready to move on. There's always kind of something along the way that a team needs a little extra with. They may need an extra split or a little bit different approach. And sometimes one that's kind of huge is sometimes they just need time and space.
That's kind of been a big takeaway with me for the last couple dogs that I've trained. Is that so often with newer, young dogs, they just haven't. They're just not quite ready for that step. And if we just kind of step back and put it on a shelf for a little bit, when we come back to it, it's like, oh, yeah, I totally know what you want. Rather than spending a whole bunch of time desperately trying to fix it, which we've all been through that phase, what I wanted to do was I did want to make sure that the course had tons of content because I did want it to be like, oh, hey, if we put something on a shelf that there's still something else for you to work on that's going to end up.
That each team progressing through the weeks might look a little different than one of the other teams. And that's a. Okay. There's probably going to end up being material that you've shelved and you can say, like, oh, wow, I can work on that when the course is done. Yeah, it's just. I just really want to also be able to provide because some teams, like I said, some people are on.
They're like, second, they're third. They're like, I don't know, some people like me might be on their, like, sixth dog coming up. And some of those teams are going to move pretty steadily through the splits. So I wanted to be able to give them kind of, like, some extras, some extra stuff that they could be focusing on. So some teams are going to be focusing on kind of finessing and generalizing more skills, whereas some.
Some teams are probably going to be focused on, like, acquisition, and they might not be ready for some of the next steps. Those might be shelved for later use. That's kind of how I foresee kind of making that fit to each specific team. So when you look back at, like, your own journey with your own dogs and agility are There early maybe. Aha. Moments that kind of have helped you arrive where you are today and maybe shape your approach.
Gosh. I think that, like, every dog that I've had has played a role. I like, I look back now at what I did with my first dog, and I'm like, wow, how did he learn anything? He was amazing. He was one of those dogs that just never. He never got phased. So I got really lucky with him. And then my next dog, she had a lot of. She got distracted very easily.
And like, now that I know what I do, like the whole know better, do better, I can recognize that she was very stressed out and her responses were very much stress responses. I didn't know that at the time. So I think a lot about her when I think about, hey, so many things could have been done differently. And I had my little Chico who wandered out of the bush, so he didn't have a very, like, life foundation was hard for him.
And then I got, like I said, to tweak him back. My last two dogs have really shaped because, like, as we grow and learn, we're always changing, right? We're always altering that. And I think we should be. So this isn't kind of where it ends. It's just part along the way. Every team, even every team that I've taught, every class that I've taken, yeah, it's ever evolving. I want it to remain ever evolving. I don't want to ever stop growing or learning, and I want to be open to change.
Melissa Breau: So we're talking about all this stuff because you have a new class, Agility Foundations, where function and fun meet on the schedule for the December term, which opens for registration on the 22nd. So I think this is coming out like the day before four, maybe. Do you want to tell us just a little more about the class, like, who might want to sign up? What prereqs, what should they know or, you know, Are there things they should know? Are there prereqs in terms of age? You know, all that stuff?
Laurie Huston: Like, most of the exercises, they can be modified up, they can be modified down. Like I said, I did want it to be really accessible. With the young teams, I am never in a rush. I really like listening to them and letting them know where we are at.
So probably you could go even down as young as, like, that kind of 10 to 12 week. But you want to know that you're really going to be focusing on different things than some of the other dogs. And there's definitely stuff you would leave on the shelf. If you were to start at that, like, really young age, I kind of think I'm really slow with really starting a lot of things with my dogs.
So the stuff that I've. Stuff that I've started done in this course, I think is very safe. It's not impactful, and we can really make it accessible right through. And like I said, I play with this with my young dog. I play with this with my older dogs. I play with it with my senior dogs just so they feel like they have something to do because it is safe.
Right. I don't have to worry about her getting hurt. And she's so excited because I don't have a puppy right now. So my old dog and my current competing dog got to play demo dog, and my old dog was so excited. And I honestly think she did better with the puppy footage because she's at the age now where she has zero stimulus control. She doesn't have a stay anymore. So I do think she actually made a pretty good demo dog for puppy class.
Melissa Breau: Fair enough. And she was so excited to be a part. Yeah. If a team's trying to decide maybe, you know, is this the right fit for me from, like, maybe they have a little bit of training under their belts already. Is there. Do you have any guidelines along that. Kind of along those lines of, like, if you're doing XYZ already, you're probably a little further along than this course?
Laurie Huston: If you're not there yet, then, yes, this is definitely the course for you. You know what? I think it's hard to say because so, so often some of the exercises that I do are a bit different than how other people do foundations. And I'll show somebody something, and it's. It's really cool when the people who. Who do have more. Who have more experience and stuff, they go, oh, I want to try that.
And they end up trying it with their dog and their dog. Actually. It's one of those pieces, like I said, with Tweak, that ended up, then maybe it wasn't split as fine and the dog learned something else, but didn't catch that little piece. So I do think there is value, even when we're a little further along in going back and visiting different foundations. I'm constantly signing up for weird foundation stuff, even obedience foundation stuff and disc foundation stuff and nosework foundation stuff.
And it all, like, I find things in all of those foundation classes that are applicable to even my competing dogs. So to say that there might be a point where you're too far past it if you're open to learning. I think there's always things to learn.
Melissa Breau: Awesome. I like that thought. Any maybe final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with?
Laurie Huston: I guess, kind of, yeah, that, like, we're constantly going back to these types of exercises and when I end up doing troubleshooting for more experienced teams, I do quite often pull these exercises back out and we just kind of go back through them and we end up finding holes.
We end up finding when we haven't revisited foundations recently, sometimes it's easy for our dogs to develop habits that if we had been focusing on foundation, they might not have developed. And the foundations are lots of fun. Fun, easy, portable. I really, really had fun coming up with the content for the course. I really had fun working my dogs through. Almost makes me want a puppy, but I'm not quite ready for that.
Melissa Breau: We talked about that before we hit record.
Laurie Huston: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely in the back of my mind that I want to start. I want to start playing again with a puppy. Just not quite yet.
Melissa Breau: Fair enough. Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Laurie.
Laurie Huston: Thank you so much for having me, Melissa. It's been a joy to talk to you.
Melissa Breau: Back at ya, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Petra Ford to talk about training for open obedience. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast and itunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone 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!