What does it really take to stand out in obedience and rally? In this epsidoe we look at the invisible skills you and your dog both need to perform and achieve your goals, from careful splitting of behaviors and building behavior chains to managing your own mental game.

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 Petra Ford, Kamal Fernandez, Ashley Escobar and Sharon Carroll about Skills And Beyond: Obedience and Rally from Backyard to Competition. The one day conference coming up on May 16th. Hi all. Welcome back to the podcast.

All: Hello. Hey.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, so to start us out, I want to give everybody a chance to figure out whose voice is whose for those listening. So I'm going to have you guys each share just a little bit about yourself, your background, maybe your experience in obedience or rally and kind of what you'll be focusing on for the conference. Ashley, you want to start us off?

Ashley Escobar: Sure. I'm Ashley Escobar and I've been involved in dog sports, including obedience and rally for many years now. My focus has really evolved from the training side and competing side to really look at the dog biomechanically and how I can support them physically. So to tie into my passion of fitness and conditioning and the rehab background that I have with that, I share my home with a few Border Collies and a few Australian Shepherds and a couple of feral children that I'm raising in the dog sports sport world as well.

And my son actually just attended his first obedience trial and scored a 200. Very first time in the ring. It'll never happen again. Right at the last big show that we went to. So that was pretty cool. And at the conference I'll be focusing on fitness and specific for supporting the obedience and rally performance dogs.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Petra?

Petra Ford: Hi, I'm Petra. I only have two dogs right now, which is very sad.

I have Zesty and Zayna. We're actively competing in obedience, started doing some nose work with them and then for the conference what I'm going to be focusing on is how to not asking for perfection and training because that's actually how you get perfection. It's a little meta.

Melissa Breau: Yes. Awesome. Kamal hi, my name is Kamal Fernandez. I'm a professional dog sports coach and behavior specialist. I've partaken in obedience for or dog sports for 30 plus years.

I've been fortunate to have a little bit success in several dog sports. But primary thing that I'm most proud of is helping others achieve their goals and their dreams using reinforcement based methods. My subject is about chaining and how important it is and a necessary evil for Dog sports and to use reinforcement based methodologies to do that effectively.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Sharon?

Sharon Carroll: Yeah, I started in obedience, competing in obedience about 35 years ago and then I transitioned out of that and went to a different Sport for about 30 years.

And then the last eight years I've been back in dog sport. And yeah, at the moment I currently have three standard poodles. I have a another puppy that's now two weeks old that will be coming to me soon. And this time everyone, it's an Australian Kelpie. So yeah, I'm going back to working dogs. So yeah, and my career titled in obedience, rally tricks, heel work for music, musical, freestyle and scent work.

And this time at this conference, my presentation is all about the human. So preparing the human mentally and emotionally for competition is my topic. And yeah, that's been a great opportunity to merge my experience as an Olympic level coach in a different sport in non dog sport where sort of I trained in sports psychology and all the aspects of preparing and managing athletes through competition. And yeah, now I'm going to merge that with my experience in dog sport worlds and present a topic that merges those two things.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, so I want to talk a little bit about success, right? So when you guys think about success in obedience or rally, you know, what do you believe matters beyond just getting those behaviors? Right? Petra, you want to start us off?

I just want a happy dog in the ring, which is easy to say, but you know, competition, obedience especially, it's so hard. There's such a huge barrier to entry from my dog knows all the behaviors to my dog can do it all in the ring and my dog can do it quote, unquote happily in the ring.

Right. So to me, that's the holy grail is I'm striving to get the same dog in the ring that I have in training. So that's what my personal definition of success looks like. Yeah, fair enough. Come on. For me, success is twofold. For me, it's about personal goals and achievements and striving for the picture that I'm aspiring to train. This is with my own dogs. But when it comes to coaching others, I try to align myself with what their vision of success is.

And that's personal. It might be, you know, getting their dog to, you know, be confident and happy that it might be getting a rally pass. It might be even just getting the dog that's reactive into an environment that's challenging. So my, I see it as twofold in terms of the technical success of achieving the pass, the win et cetera. But sometimes, as we all know, I'm sure most of us that have been competing for a period of time, your dog can do the round of its life and get hammered and it can be absolutely useless and you can win by a country mile.

So you can't use that as the barometer or to measure success. You have to be objective and analytical to your own personal goals and standards. Because, you know, obviously obedience certainly is a subjective sport. Other sports have, you know, time that's more of an indicator of whether you're the fastest or etc. But for me it's, as I said, it's about my own personal goals, striving to be the best version of the trainer and handler I can for that dog.

And there's a bit, like Petra said, it's the holy grail of having it all come together in a given moment. And then also you have the icing on the cake of, you know, being the person that's deemed worthy by the, the judge, etc. But for me, it's very much about personal goals, trying to find, certainly under this methodology, finding ways that at one point we didn't have. I think it's much more comprehensive now.

But certainly when I started using reinforcement based methods, there wasn't necessarily a blueprint for how to do it and do it well. So for me that's the constant, the initial goal and it's evolved over time to more personal goals, really. But yeah, and as a coach, it's about aligning myself with what the person wants. Yeah, I love both those answers and I would say that it's the merging of those things as well, that exactly what female said that that success is completely dependent on the individual, the individual dog, the individual person, that team, what are they trying to achieve and rather than the success thing, you know, qualified titles, place getting, et cetera.

But I think no matter who comes to you for coaching and no matter what their goal is, it's still that primary thing for me that the dog has to be comfortable doing that the dog has to want to do it, the dog has to be enjoying it. So regardless of the human goal, even if the human says, but I just want to get in the ring and I don't care how my performance goes on paper, how, how good or bad it is, you know, if you want to look at it objectively, I'd still say, yeah, okay, even if you're in a rush to get in the ring, I'd still be concerned that if your dog's not enjoying that experience, if that dog's finding it an uncomfortable experience, then let's set a different goal.

So it's about, yeah, finding exactly what that person wants to achieve and then helping them achieve it and making sure that we're still centering the dog at the middle of all of that and making sure that dog's having a good experience. And, you know, again, good experience doesn't have to mean that they necessarily have all the traits to win in that sport. But we need that dog comfortable and, yeah, quite unquote, enjoying it, whatever that picture looks like. But we want to see the behaviours that indicate that dog's comfortable in that situation.

Ashley Escobar: I think that a big part of it is the behaviors right and getting the behaviors right in the ring, which is just a baseline for us. For me, what really matters is going to be the connection that I have with the dog and how I'm able to communicate and how much the dog actually wants to be present in the ring.

Like others have said, their attitude as they go through the performance and the motions of the work is really everything, right? The energy that they have in the ring, the way that I, as the handler am handling the mistakes that are happening, the amount of trust that I have in the dog, I think clean runs and perfect runs are magical, right? They're, they're lovely. But definitely the way that I'm engaged with my teammate and the confidence that the dog has in the ring is what really stands out to me more technically than being able to check success off as, like, a box.

When you guys think about, like, a strong obedience or rally performance, you know, as people who are very experienced in the sport and, like, know kind of what goes into it to get into that ring and achieve kind of that level of performance, what do you think are kind of those invisible pieces that maybe other people with a slightly less experienced eye, or even just people who maybe haven't stopped to think about it, even if they have lots of experience in the sport, don't recognize or maybe don't see, but that, you know, kind of hold all the things together and really let you achieve that success.

Kamal Fernandez: So, for me, the big one is people rushing the process because they want success, which is measured by rosettes. And for me, that's the biggest thing that you try to communicate and teach your, you know, the people that I coach, is not to rush the process. Don't sacrifice what you want for what you want right now. Because the ultimate thing, I think the thing that glues it together is confidence on the dog's Part and the dog being truly focused and engaged.

Not the illusion of. Not because you've got a reinforcer on you, not because you're, you know, you're pretending or the dog's being. You're kidding. The dog to maintain focus and the dog genuinely wanting to be with you in that situation, ring, whatever, that's the thing that's the hardest. And I would spend more time with that or that any of my dogs and before I even contemplated teaching a single behavior, because if I don't have that connection, it makes not only the technical things harder to train, but it detracts from the end goal, which is to, you know, at certainly the higher levels of sport, the elite level sport.

I don't want to be thinking about my dog. Is this dog connected? Is it to focus? Is it going to be worrying about the thing per se. I want to really be focusing on my role. But if I'm concerning myself with my dog's loss of attention because somebody's out there with a barky dog, then it's going to get in my head and that's going to detract from my focus.

So the process of getting to that point and with some dogs, it's harder than others. The truth be told, if you have a dog that's really got struggles environmentally, that timeline is what it is. You can't rush that process. And I'd say that's the biggest thing that people misunderstand. You know, healing does not solve your problems. You know, like your dog watching you is not the solution for all.

You have to go back and, and get that genuine desire and that genuine connection. And I'd say that's the thing that most people misunderstand. And it creates that, as you describe, that invisible connection. But as I said, depending on the dog dictates the timeline. And some dogs, it might be they mature later. Some dogs have more sensitivity. Some dog. Dogs have more awareness. Some dogs have a history.

If you have a dog that's a crossover dog, you have to give it more time to adjust and to, you know, depending on how you've approached the problem previously and so forth and so forth. So for me, those. That's the big thing that people don't always get. They want to teach heel work. You know, they get a puppy and they want to get it doing heel work more or less like just after it's weaned off its mother.

It's like, let's leave that crap. That's so easy to teach. If you have these other pieces in place, he'll work. Whilst it's a big project, if you have that dog engaged with you and focused in any environment and comfortable and confident, the rest is easy. It's not easy, but it's easier, if that makes sense. For sure.

Sharon Carroll: Yeah, we said the invisible cases. And because my topic this time is about the human, I'm really thinking about the fact that what is the invisible pace between a really good performance or someone that's in the ring presenting that really good performance and maybe someone who's not?

And it's that feeling of being in control, in control of the situation. And I think that when we really break that down, where does that come from? That comes from exactly what Kamal was just saying. That solid preparation. You know, the dogs had the training needed not just to do the actual behaviors, but to be in that environment and do those behaviors. And so it's that solid preparation for the human and the dog.

Both parties are fully ready and have the skills needed. It's also that trying to train as many peaches as possible through to habit, not just for the dog, but for the person as well. Because when you're in that competition ring, the cognitive load is very high, like the mental emotional load, very high. Already things are changing. It's a new environment. You're having to respond to judges, kids in the moment.

You need everything else as much as possible to be down to habit formation. How do I walk in the ring? How do I take the leash off? All of those things have to be just done by habit so that you're freeing up your mind to focus on other things. And even something as simple as knowing the rules, know the rules for the sport that you're going into because that stops you being clustered.

Because if you get in the ring and something odd happens, you straight away just like, oh, I don't have to worry about that, or it doesn't matter, or that's only going to cost a point, or not that we should be thinking about those things, but definitely knowing the rules stops us from getting caught thinking about those things in the ring, which straight away pulls you away from doing the job you need to do, which is remaining fully focused on just doing each piece of the exercise the best you can.

And if you're thinking about what happens with the rule because this thing just happened, then straight away you're pulling attention away and also just actually undertaking the training to be in that mental place, to think clearly while you're in the ring and to be present and to do each task as it comes up, rather Than thinking about the past and future. There's a lot of human skills that go into performing, and I think we spend so much of our time focusing on training the dog.

And people go in the ring, often just putting it all on the dog, and it's like, no, no, you're a competitor, too. You're going in the ring. You're an athlete. This is a team sport. You have to come to the party fully prepared yourself. You have to have the skills to do the job. In fact, you're the team leader, so you need really good skills. And yet a lot of the time, I think people adjust, train the skills.

Their dog. Once their dog has the skills, they go in the ring, Then all of a sudden, it falls apart off them because of the handler initially. Then the dog has a bad experience. Then we end up in this downward spiral because then the dog hasn't gone as well. Then the person goes in the ring the next time less confident, Then the dog's even less confident again, and down we go.

So getting. I think that really the invisible pace is that human realizing that they are an athlete, too. They're a competitor, too. They're going in the ring and performing and really taking on board that and doing the training needed to get to that point.

Ashley Escobar: For me, it's all of the stuff that you really cannot point a single into, like a single moment, right? It's the foundation work.

It's the clarity and the cues. It's how much the dog truly understands the behavior that we're asking of them. Instead of just having a response to going through the motions, it's. It can be broken down into the tiniest little bits, right into the timing of our rewards that built the performance and the behavior to begin with. The consistency that we've had in the training, from breaking it down and proofing and generalizing the behaviors and all of the little repetitions that made the behavior solid and then adding pressure into it so that it is ring ready.

Because there is such a difference, right? And I think also it's the relationship that you have with the dog, the trust that they have with you, that if you say you're going to pay them the reinforcement, you actually pay them the reinforcement and build that reinforcement with them. And I think when the handler has the ability, like Sharon said, to remain calm and stay in the moment with their dog under pressure themselves, all of those things together, when all those pieces come together, right, Everything looks so easy, and it's actually just a combination of all of those things holding everything together.

Not just one specific little piece that's brought it into the picture for the dog. Not one behavior that's been trained into the dog and instilled into them, like heel work or something. PETRA When I see a really nice performance in the ring, the first thing I think of is that took an insanely enormous amount of work is behind that performance. And I think people really underestimate that. They make a lot of assumptions, but it's just sheer hard work.

And it's an understanding of the things, like the importance of the handler. Just like Sharon mentioned, your emotions controlling your body, the cue system you're giving Kamal's talk that he's going to give on chaining. Right. The dog understanding that just because you keep going without reinforcer doesn't mean you're wrong. Because a lot of dogs get really worried about that. Reducing reinforcement. People really struggle with that. Good trainers put a lot of work in conscious effort into mindfully reducing reinforcement.

They've put in massive amounts of work into engagement, and that continues for the dog's entire career. Like, you don't just put it in and then it's gone. It's like you're working on that forever. Distractions, like exposing your dog to, like, so many different environments. So your dog learns to generalize the concept, and not just learn to generalize the concept, but have the ability to maintain mental focus for a sustained amount of time when there's all these other things going on.

Like, that's really hard. Like, it's so hard. Like, humans struggle with it. So, like, why do people, you know, people get so frustrated with their dogs? But it's like, it's hard. It's really hard. So there are all those in between pieces, ring entrances, transitions, setups that people generally don't focus on. And so it's there, like all the pieces you need to go from the dog knowing the behaviors to going in the ring, it's just like it's equally as much, if not more than what's behind just teaching the behaviors.

And though people with really nice ring performances have worked on all those things and put an enormous amount of effort into that. Yeah, I like that note about remembering how hard it can be to focus for that long. I think, you know, even. Even just sitting to do a task for a little while, sometimes it's like, oh, wait, I did check my phone in the middle of that.

Well, your dog can't just stop and check their phone. You know what I mean? In the middle of a. Or try doing your work in the middle of Starbucks. 10 times harder than in my sunroom. Right. So that's what we're. In essence, we're saying, do this super hard task that's completely unnatural requires an enormous. Ignore everything that makes you a dog and do it for like, 9 to 10 or I don't know how long is, like, in Kamal and England, a run.

Like, it's like 10 minutes, 12 minutes. 10. 12 minutes easily. Yeah. That's a long, long, long time with no reinforcer. Yeah, it's really hard.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. So I think it's really interesting because you're each kind of addressing performance from a different angle. Right. We've got body, we've got behavior, we've got mindset. We've got the handler end, you know, so I'd like to talk a little bit about how you guys see those pieces interacting both when things are maybe going well and maybe when they're not going so well. Right. Like, how do those pieces clash or come together or how can one impact the other? Sharon, you want to start us off?

Sharon Carroll: Yeah, I think. I mean, we just. We need all those cases. It's as simple as that. We need to be a team with our dog, so we have to be present. Our dog needs to want to be there and be motivated to do it. Our dog, of course, needs to be physically fit and strong and have the physical stamina to do the task for the period of time needed.

And then our dog, as we were just talking about, they have to be mentally prepared for the task. They have to be prepared for the environment they're going to be in. And they have to have that sufficient mental stamina that Petra was just talking about. And so it's like all of those pieces have to come together in that moment for a good performance. If any one of those pieces fall apart, I mean, it's as simple as that.

If any one of those pieces is falling apart, we just can't have a good performance. It really is. Yeah. That's straightforward. I mean, Ashley, I think when. When things are going really well. Right. It just feels so seamless, like each piece is supporting the next piece without you having to really think about it. Right. It's just like us breathing or taking deeper breaths when we're running. The dog's body is loose, it's confident.

You know, the behaviors are clear, they're fluent. The handler is present and giving good information and good feedback and cues on time. The mindset on both ends is steady and focused, and it turns into this big feedback loop where everything just sort of keeps reinforcing itself. And the team just flows, and it's just a beautiful thing to watch. On the other hand, when it's not going well, right, when the wheels fall off, you start to see where those individual pieces have that disconnect, right?

Maybe the handler gets stressed and it shows up with the dog now being tense and not having that nice, crisp, fluid behavior and movements. Or the dog gets a little uncertain about a behavior that was maybe not reinforced properly back in the foundational level. Right? Like just one little crack can ripple through every bit of the performance. So I think that's why it's, of course, it's so important to have that solid foundation in each individual area, because we do need that total picture.

There are all of the pieces kind of put together so that we can have enough stability should something not be quite so steady in one of those areas.

Petra Ford: Pretty much what they said. I do think a piece that's very much overlooked, and I see this a lot, is when dogs have an underlying physical issue and it's not recognized and it's treated as a training issue, right? Like, my brain always goes straight to something's wrong.

Is something wrong with my dog. And I mean, I've countless examples where for all intents and purposes, someone looking from the outside is like, yeah, your dog's fine. And I'm like, eh, you know, and yep, I was right every time. And so I really wish people would think about that more. I also think physical fitness is incredibly important because if you're physically tired, you're mentally tired, so how can you physically concentrate if you're huffing and puffing or if you're sore or, you know, I love when people are like, sit and then they like, use their foot to get the dog to tuck their foot in.

No, the dog's foot sticking out because it's weak, not because the foot's sticking out. So it's like, foot sticks out, tell them to pull it in. Foot sticks out, tell them to pull it in. Oh my God. Do fitness work? Right? So, so I think that's like a soup. It's not, you know, but that's just a piece that gets overlooked, I think a lot more than the other pieces.

Melissa Breau: I like that. Kamal?

Kamal Fernandez: Yeah. I mean, again, just to reiterate what everybody else has said, I said, the thing is with all these specific things, so for example, the training, the physical entity, the handler's role, there has to be balance between all those things. And it's like spinning plates, isn't it? You're trying to spin the plates appropriately at the right speed for the individual and so forth. So let's look at it the other way.

The handler that's super competitive and has a really strong mental game. If they haven't prepared the dog physically or haven't taught it to chain and have fluency in the behavior, they're going to put unnecessary pressure on that dog and potentially then jeopardize the relationship. You might have a really skilled dog with physically brilliant and really conditioned well, but the handler doesn't have a strong mental game, so the team's going to break down.

So the key is to find balance, because within us all there is a dog trainer and there is a competitor. And both those things need nurturing and need support, but they can also be an opposition. You know, in certain instances, the competitor wants to be the prevalent voice and saying, you know, you know, go for the win. Let's get in. There's a big competition, like, go for it.

And the dog trainer says, now hold back. You're not ready. You need to do X, Y and Z. So the whole thing with all of us is to find balance constantly between the dog's physical fitness, you know, the dog's ability to chain and understand the, the foundation pieces, the handler's mental game, the handler's capability, the handler's skill set, and so forth and so forth. So the whole thing, and that to me is what is the, the, the Rubik's Cube.

And the interest that's sustained for me for so long is unpacking that particular puzzle for that team or for that dog or whatever. And I think that's the whole thing is finding the ultimate goal is to have all those, those plates spinning in just the right speed at just the right moment. And that's the holy grail, as they say. Yeah, I think that's a good way of thinking about it. The plate spinning analogy really works for my brain.

Melissa Breau: Thinking about the sport in particular, right. Obedience and rally, they both require kind of a lot of detail and a lot of attention to detail and a lot of, like, thinking about those little pieces. Right. Especially if what's important to you is getting a really good score. So what factors do you guys consider when you're trying to transition from, you know, being the really good dog trainer and splitting all the things down and training the pieces of each individual exercise to really beginning to build that ring ready picture where, you know, you kind of have to put the pieces together and you have to have reduced reinforcement. You have to kind of be going into the ring. So I'd love to just talk about all of the things that you think about when you're transitioning, you know, from that first piece to that more advanced picture.

Ashley Escobar: For me, it's about knowing when the dog truly understands each piece that we've been working on, right? Versus just being able to get through a particular set of exercises.

So I'm going to be looking for that consistency, that clarity, and that the dog can handle small changes to the environment. When we start to proof without having a lot of questions or falling apart on me, I want the behaviors to feel completely solid on their own, with pressure, with distraction as we're proofing it, and the dog to be able to stay in the game without, again, having a lot of questions for me and without needing that constant, constant reinforcement and support there.

And so when I start to look at building the full picture, I'm thinking more about how all of these pieces sort of connect and play a role. Of course, a lot of them do require some specific conditioning, physical specifics, for the dog to be able to under undergo those exercises. So not just physically, but technically and emotionally. Right. Can the dog stay in the right head space as we start to chain things together?

Can they recover from a small mistake, whether it be my mistake or their mistake or something happened in the environment? Right. Do they understand the flow of what's happening, or are they just, like, anticipating my next move for what I'm going to ask? And then I also like to start to change the picture, right? So it doesn't only work in one context. It has to work and hold true in different locations with different setups, with more pressure, with other people, with new things in the environment.

Right. The goal is that by the time all of I'm ready for that full run, right. It still feels just as clear and confident to the dog and me as their handler as it did when we were working on just that one individual piece in a very comfortable environment in their little safe space.

Petra Ford: Man, my plates come crashing down all the time. That's all I. Yeah, it's. It's the plate, right? Because if I start chaining, I'm not going to only chain because my dog's going to get flat, right? Once my dog understands chaining, I'm not going to never chain again because I have to keep that fresh, right? Once I start putting fronts in the exercises, doesn't mean I never do games anymore or I don't work on fronts in isolation anymore. I'm still doing that.

I just have more plates in the air, right? Because, like, I have to balance the motivation, the relaxation, the proofing, the distractions with the, you know. Some sessions, my dogs get very low reinforcement rate. Some sessions they get very high reinforcement rate. Like, so it's all like juggling. Juggling, right? And it. But it's remembering that I think, like, people. For a lot of people, it's all or nothing, right?

So it's like, well, okay, now I change. Well, not every day, dude. Like, stop. What are you doing? Like, oh, really? You know, or they do the full exercise every time. Well, but my dog, no, you still have to do the games. You still have to reward the pieces. You still have to keep the pieces super fun, right? So basically, you just have more plates in the air.

That's it. So the dog has to build their skills, and you have to learn how to juggle better and better. Got it? Yeah, you have to juggle better and better because it's all about balance, right? Like, that's. It's. It's just this crazy juggling act. And I'm sure Sharon can speak to this. Like, it really helps to track things because I think a lot of people don't track things at all.

And then they're really at. And I mean, like, at this point, to a certain extent, I can fly by the seat of my pants. But I still. I still take notes. I still write things down. I still do spend a lot of time reflecting, right? Like, kind of going through my head. Oh, yeah, I need to. Oh, I haven't done that. Oh, I. You know, don't forget to do, you know, so that there's this constant balance.

Because if I'm not tracking it, things just start squirting, you know, out the sides. Fair enough. Come on. I think that the. The challenge of competing and using reinforcement based dog training, and I think is the fact that it's reinforcement based. I think people like to reinforce their dogs. So. And obviously, the first time probably a puppy experiences the absence of reinforcement is when there's an incorrect response.

You know, your puppy, you say, sit. The puppy doesn't sit. Person doesn't reinforce force. And that's a very early lesson. The dog learns that no reward equals bad or wrong. So then you have to go through the rigors of untraining that to explain to the dog. No, actually, you know, you are correct. Keep going and so forth. And I think that trainers that gravitate to this approach of training, we like the.

We like the reinforcement process. It's our little dopamine hit. And I think then for A long time. I would say, in the early process of reinforcement based job training using a dog sports, I would say that was a huge flaw. And we had a lot of data and examples of how to do it using different methodologies. But obviously it's been learning on the fly about how to use it using different techniques.

So I think the, as the others have said as well, it's always about looking at the bigger picture constantly of what you're aiming for. And coming back to actually to the original question that you asked Melissa, which was, is the thing that you're aiming for and as the, the, the end goal is to have that magic moment where all the pieces that we're all talking about come together.

And to be truthful, you know, it probably only happens once every decade, really, if you're lucky. And then you get another dog and you get on this hamster wheel of trying to chase that high all over again. I mean, it's kind of twisted, but we're still here doing it. So there must be something in it. But it is, it is that elusive one time. I mean, I'm sure everybody here could give, you know, on one hand if that those rounds where you can imagine, you can reminisce and go, that was it.

And even you hope that, you know, you had success from that. But that one time when you think, oh my God, this feels so easy. I could do this for hours. But yet, you know, all that, as Petra said earlier, all the work that's got into it to get to that, oh my God, this feels like I could walk on water. But yeah, it is a, it is a, as the others have said.

And just to back at what Petra said, it's always about balance is always about keeping those plates spinning and knowing. It's that the balance of knowing any moment the plate could drop, but you've got to also manage that plate, you know, I mean, that's what makes it interesting to be truthful, isn't it, really?

Melissa Breau: Yeah, for sure. Sharon?

Sharon Carroll: I think that transition between like from that sort of sleeping down and teaching the pieces through to being ring ready, I just see so many people make that as a line in the fan.

Like, they go, okay, I finished teaching it now. And then all of a sudden they become formal, they stop all reinforcement. I mean, exactly what is that they just go to suddenly, oh, I have to do this exercise in its completeness every time without reward, or they start doing the whole routine without rewards all the time. Or they think it's now the time to stop using rewards at all because they've got to get ready for going in the ring and it's that, it's that sort of line in the sand, that table draw.

And then the dog starts to fall apart and then they don't know why and it's because it's suddenly changed even themselves. They become rigid and formal and they start giving these formal cues and the dog's like, why did you change? You're all cold and not friendly anymore. And I don't understand. Instead of introducing a little piece of formality and then back to loose and then a little bit of formality till in the end the formality just makes sense to the dog that's as good to them as you lit being loose.

But if you do it in a sudden transition, like where you loose, loose, lose lots of informal starts and informal endings to an exercise and then you suddenly transition to formal, formal, formal. It's such a shock to the dog. And then, and people often do it right before they're ready to go in the ring, but they, they don't realize this is a part of the process that has to be done long before you go in the ring.

And so they've got the skills ready and then they suddenly go, oh, I want now my dog has all the skills. And they look at the calendar and they find a competition. And then they suddenly start going formal on the dog and dropping all the reinforcement because they're getting read in the ring and you're like, oh, hang on. And then the dog starts going, falling apart sort of a week or so before they go in the ring and they don't know why that's happened.

And so just recognizing as everyone's been saying, that it's a slow process and that just the, the baseline is once they've got the skill, once they have that exercise in its entirety, that's the starting point. Then we have to build from there for quite a long while before we actually get to the ring ready part. And so yeah, it's just realizing it's a slow process, realizing that it takes time, realising that we have to be doing that ping ponging effect, not that linear effect where we're, we're sort of doing something one day with a lot of formality back to looseness again, or we're not using as much rewards today, but then we've gone back to lots of rewards again tomorrow.

And also just recognizing how important it is that the jog knows those exercises so well. Like not just know them, can do them some of the time. Most of the time, but truly can do them basically 100% of the time in different environment before even thinking about going in the ring. And I guess the next part to that for me is that people need to be accurate. Like we have to be accurate about our assessment for whether our dog's ready or not.

And I think it's so easy to not recognize in training that you're adding a little bit of space support that you won't be able to do in the ring, you know, so people go, oh, I'll have a little mop practice. And they get 3/4 the way through the exercise and something happens in the distance and then they have to add a little bit of extra support to get their dog re-engaged, or they bring out a treat and do a couple of treat tosses and get back to it again.

But they just don't realize they're doing that. Maybe they're only doing that twice in a whole session or something as they go through their exercises, but that twice you think even going to be an option in the ring training, you're going to not be able to provide that extra support. Whether that's asking for some engagement, whether that keep bringing out the treats and toys, it's not going to be available.

So you can't just in training go, well, one time I was able to get through all of the exercises without treats and toys and without any extra support, it's like, that's not going to be enough. You need to be able to know that that's replicable over and over again. Not again, like Hans said, not day in, day out, but, you know, today and then back to some other fun stuff.

And then one day next week, can you get through it all again on your first go when you plan to do it? And then, okay, that's good. Can you do that again in a few weeks time? Okay, well, if you're consistently when you decide to do all of the exercises in succession without treats and toys, and you can repeatedly at different times go through that whole thing, then yeah, maybe we're ready to go in the ring.

I just, just seeing one time that you can get through it all, or not accurately realizing that there's those times you are stepping in and adding support in a training setting that you're not going to be able to add in the ring, I think that's just so critical and that's why videoing can be helpful, because you then look at it, you go, actually I did have to offer a bit of extra support there.

I didn't even realize it because that's not going to be available to you in the ring. Then you're stuck with this poor dog that needs support and is not getting support. Support. Now they're starting to get uncomfortable potentially about being in the ring. Now we have a dog that potentially, over a few experiences of that, starts to get a bit ring stressed because they haven't had the support they needed. But we can stop that from happening by making sure they're more ready before that first time they go in the ring.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. So we've talked about this a little bit. Kind of it was part of your first answers and a lot. I think it's kind of like hinted at in a lot of these other things we've been talking about. But, you know, we have these detailed pieces, these skills, these things that we have to teach.

And we also kind of want that happy, excited dog who's there to do it with us for the, for the right reasons. Right. So how do we, like, how do we balance those pieces? How do we really think about making sure that, yes, we're getting the details and we're also getting the joy that we're looking for so that we can have long term success. Right. With the dog that we're working with. Petra, you want to start us off?

Petra Ford: So you can't ask your dog to give you an accurate front and a retrieve if they can't do it in isolation. Right? In isolation you need to. If you break everything down into teeny, tiny pieces, and this is where people are very weak. Like, I shape fronts now, right. So it's a process. Dogs love it. They think it's super fun. Like my dogs literally can do 30 fronts in a row in the sunroom.

And they're like, they think it's the most fun thing on the planet. Right. Because of how I taught it. But I broke it into little pieces. People don't break it down enough. Like they're trying to get to the end and then in trying to get to the end too quickly, they're actually slowing down the process because the dog's not really clear. Right. So my friends have to be fluent in isolation.

And then I back chain them like a little bit at a time. I think that's the difference is like I break it into such tiny pieces and I make sure that the dog really understands it. And then the dog's confident and it's fun. And then when you're putting it together, if your dog is relaxed, they're more likely to be correct. So if my dog knows how to front.

And every time they are in an exercise and they come to front and I'm like, front, front or no front, my dog's going to get slow because they're going to get worried their accuracy level is going to go down. And it just becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If my dog's flying in because I'm doing game after game releasing them through my legs, then I ask for a front.

My dog's relaxed, my dog's comfortable. Higher likelihood they're going to hit front, right? And when I first put them in the exercises, I also help the dog just a little bit so that they're correct so they're not failing all the time. So it goes back to the theme of balance, right? Like you, you have to keep it in balance and you have to keep just like in healing, like you have to keep the pieces really fun.

And even now like Zayna's 10, I mean I'm still, I still the other day we just did forward, right turn, yes, like three times. Forward, left turn, yes, like three times, you know, and then she's like, yeah, this is so good. I know how to do a left turn. Look at my left turn right. And so then you keep it really fun. So then when you do go and put it in a longer healing pattern, your dog's like, yep, I know how to do a right.

Yeah, look at my left, look at my about turn right. And now it's staying fun for the dog because it's that balance. It's just constantly striking that, that balance.

Kamal Fernandez: Yeah, I mean, I think the, all dog sports have a conflict between accuracy and drive and desire. And for me, desire and want is the foundation piece. So again, as I talked about earlier, until I have that desire, until I have that focus, until I have that engagement, I wouldn't teach something technically or I wouldn't, I wouldn't try and necessarily teach something unless I had the dog's desire or willingness to play the game.

Now there, I think that often what's misinterpreted is drive versus arousal and that's a whole nother conversation. But I want the dog to be focused and engaged for the right reasons and that then I have to balance that out between the dog meeting criteria and then being technically correct. And that obviously is part and parcel of the interest and the fun of certainly something like obedience or rally and certainly agility, this technical accuracy required there as well.

But what again, it comes back to that point of finding the balance, spinning the plates between the two things because there will be conflict between the two. If you have too much drive on something, you will lose accuracy. If you have too much accuracy, you lose the drive. And it's, that's the, the again, it's the, the fun of finding the way to get that with that particular dog, I think is the really interesting bit because some dogs can take more repetitions of a behavior.

Other dogs, you don't need to. You can keep it quite light, sprinkle in little tentacle bits. But it is always about finding not just balance, but harmony between the two things. And I think there's. That's a really important. The two things have to be. The dog has to want to be. To play the game accurately. And that, you know, that's, to me, the, the ultimate goal of the dog wanting to be technically correct or wanting to meet criteria.

Like as Petra just said, that dog has to want to do that left turn perfectly, you know, to me. So that's the, that's a. Another layer of understanding that I want to try and get with my dogs not just to throw themselves through the left turn, but to, to execute that turn brilliantly with joy and nail it where it can physically do it to an absolute perfection. That then is again what we were talking about.

It's having those, those competing entities. So the dog now has to be able to have. Have enthusiasm to execute that perfect left turn. It has to be able to physically be able to do it and then I have to be able to cue it properly. So again, it comes back to what we were saying about the. All those pieces of a puzzle. And it is, it is always.

It's not a struggle, it's not the right word. It is part of the process and the journey that it. What is. What makes it so intriguing for me? And it's the, the balance between the two things really.

Melissa Breau: Sharon?

Sharon Carroll: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think the question is like balance, like how do you keep the door? How do you not sacrifice enjoyment? And I think the, the key thing for me is just monitoring motivation and enthusiasm as a top priority, like full stop as the priority.

And then it, like it's not a bonus after the skill is actually a necessary starting point. And then we add the skill. And if when we're adding the skills or adding the position or adding the pieces, we see a drop in motivation, enthusiasm, we have to address that immediately. Like it's, it's the priority we. And I think that's where again, as I was saying in the last question, as people are preparing for competition, we often see that sacrifice the enthusiasm and the motivation.

We start to see the focus change. The person changes their focus on what they want. They went from just wanting fun and they wanted it all to feel really good, and they're suddenly looking at a different end point. And so even with that, it comes down to really looking at where our dog's at right now and also looking at where we want to be, but not only looking at where we want to be.

And I think if we're constantly only looking at, this is the end picture, this is what we want in terms of the actual skill set. And we're saying we need, for example, rally. We need 20 stations. So that's it. We're going to keep working on 20 stations. But your dog's not interested at station one. Like, let's, let's, you know, let's not, not keep going. But I, but I have a.

I have to enter and the first thing's going to be at least 16 stations, for example. So my dog has to do 16 stations in a row. And it's like, yeah, but, but if your dog's not motivated, if your dog's not enthusiastic, it doesn't matter how many times you keep pushing for those 16 stations, it's actually going to go downhill. It's not going uphill. You know, we're not getting anywhere.

So instead we have to go, okay, maybe your end goal is those 16 stations, but where's your dog at right now? Well, they can do two stations before they start to look around. Okay, let's look at the starting. Let's look at where our dog's out right now. Look at that goal as somewhere to be. But that's not what we need to only focus on. We have to focus on where our dog's at right now and build towards where we want to be, not stop thinking about where they're at right now and only think about where we want to be.

And for me, yeah, it's monitoring that motivation and enthusiasm all the time and really recognizing, like, really being tuned into that. Recognizing as soon as that starts to drop, we have to change something. And I would extend that because, because my presentations about the human, I would extend that to the human as well. We have to be monitoring motivation and enthusiasm and we have to be wanting to do that thing.

If we get to the point where it's just like, this is just a hard fog, we don't actually even enjoy it anymore. We're only looking at the end goal. We're not enjoying any part of the process, then we have to reassess that maybe we need to rekindle some intrinsic motivation. We have to start to find the joy in the process again because. Because it's just not sustainable otherwise.

It's not sustainable for the dogs, it's not sustainable for us. I think that's an interesting thing to think about because I think a lot of the times we hear, you know, as a dog learns the behavior, they become more confident in the behavior. So we see some of that. Right. But the flip side of that is what you're talking about of needing that like buy in first. I don't know if that, that kind of triggers anything you want to add, but, but just kind of listening to you talk about it, I was thinking about, you know, the advice we sometimes hear of don't worry about speed, don't worry about this or that.

You know, it'll come as you build fluency versus kind of this idea of, you know, wanting to make sure that you've got that. But I think that's the difference. Speed and enjoyment are two different things. It's okay for some dogs, yes, speed is going to be a part of the learning process because they like to move fast, they like to move their bodies. So yeah, they're going to have speed right from the start.

But for some dogs, they're more thinking dog. They need to do it, but they need to think they need to do it. You know, like for myself, I'm a bit like that. If I'm learning something, I want to do it fully. Like everyone stop annoying me for a second while I learn this process. I want to do it steadily until I get it. Then I'm going to speed up.

But it doesn't mean I'm not enjoying the process. And I think a lot of people relate feed and enjoyment for dogs as the same thing. As long as my dog's going fast, it must be enjoying itself. Yet I've seen a lot of dogs that are chaotically moving and they're not enjoying themselves at all. It's just frenetic movement because they're just, just don't know what else to do and they're over aroused.

But so I think it's separating that out. Is your dog still showing lots of loose body language? Are they still. Do they have relaxed facial muscles? Are they looking at you? Are they engaged in the process? They're the things we're looking for, not necessarily speed. But I do think that in the reinforcement community especially there's been that idea that. Well, initially that I found a lot of people thought that if Their dog didn't learn it.

We with speed. They'd never do it with speed. So they had to do it with speed from the start. And then I see the other side of it where people are like, well, once the dog becomes confident, it will speed up. That's true. Providing the dog is actually relaxed and enjoying the process along the way. If you've just got a very tense dog that's doing it slowly, mainly because they're inhibited and they're moving slowly because they're stuck and uncomfortable, that's not going to just speed up because they're not gaining that enjoyment and confidence.

That's such a thing that people misinterpret that this is the arousal versus drive question, that they misinterpret physical speed as, oh, my dog's having a good time or frenzy as this dog's motivated. It's not. And I mean, I really like it if my dogs, some of my dogs really have to be slow and thoughtful. They're absolutely enjoying it, but they're just figuring out the math equation. So like, give them space, let them figure, figure it out.

Some of them go borderline. You would look at them and go, that dog is borderline stressed because they're really wanting to, to be right and because, you know, experience and understanding who they are. I'm happy and comfortable to just let them figure it out. And then as soon as they've got it, the enthusiasm and motivation and drive comes back instantaneously. But as I said, it's such a, it's such a fallacy.

People want to create false enthusiasm rather than just letting that grow naturally and allowing it to develop at the rate of the dog, really. And, and I think for people trying to work out, well, now how do I know which way it is? It's like, look at the trajectory. Is that is, are things getting better? Is the, is the dog looking more relaxed or is the speed increasing?

Are they looking more confident? Are they getting it right more percentage of the time? Like all those things we can look at for the trajectory, whereas if it's going downhill, then something's not quite right. We need to change something. I think it really, for me, it comes down to being really intentional. Intentional about what I'm prioritizing for any given session, right? Like making sure that the dog is still winning more than I am critiquing their performance that we're working on and then trying to be very mindful about zooming out for myself.

I'm a huge note taker and keeping track if I can't write it down and, and monitor it. I cannot manage it and make it better. So looking at that big picture long term with that specific dog because they're all so different and just recognizing and knowing that every little detail does not have to be fixed right now, right? Like not every session needs to be about improving and perfecting the dog.

Some days it's just about keeping the dog in the game and loving the game and building confidence and reinforcing the relationship for them. Just working with me, like Petra said, right. We're just shape. I love to do shaping exercises and games with the dog just to keep them in kind of like this check and balance. So there's some work that's happening, but I'm just a huge proponent of just play with the dog and having them get that buy in with us and having little bits of wins along the way, but not losing sight of the big picture and keeping them happy.

Because the last thing I want is to feel like we're drilling and grinding away at one particular exercise to kind of capture there.

Melissa Breau: So I mean, we're kind of looking at this from all the different angles, right. And all the different aspects. But you know, if I was to ask you guys kind of how much of success do you attribute to each of these pieces, you know, how much can you attribute to really good dog training skills?

How much is really about, you know, being able to adapt your handling to this specific dog, to really customizing your routines or your training or your competition day? And how much is about, you know, your personal as a handler, your mental prep, your emotional state, managing those pieces, you know, how do you break those things down? Which thing I know we're talking about balance kind of throughout the whole conversation, but, you know, is it just equally balanced?

Are there things there that, you know, are maybe more important for particular teams or less important important for particular teams? What do you guys think? Kamal?

Kamal Fernandez: So I think that a lot of the, the, I think the biggest thing is good dog training. I think good dog training is, will give you a lot of the other stuff. So if you have a very well trained dog that's fluent and confident in all the things, that's going to give you a level of confidence because that's going to help your male mental game if you, you believe that the dog has been trained and you've covered all the bases.

So I think that's a huge part of it. I wouldn't say it's the, the majority entity, but I think that having a really, well, that, you know, I think Denise might have said the greatest antidote to nerves is having a very well trained dog. However, having said that, there are many people that I know that have really well trained dogs that are phenomenal dog trainers that just don't have mental game because they self, they, they either have perfection paralysis or they self flagellate, as it were, or they lose their head on certain aspects and the other entities.

You can have the most brilliantly trained dog and your mental game is brilliant. But if the dog has got an injury, you can be, there's nothing you can do about it. So I don't know, I think that it's, there's a fluency to these things of which one is relevant for that moment. So the baseline is definitely have a really well trained dog, dog that's physically capable. I would say those two are the priorities.

Once you have that, then you can do things like chaining and start to address your mental game. If you were a newbie competitor, you definitely want to have a dog that's physically capable because the physical entity you can train and train. If your dog can't physically do it, like if its body isn't well and it's healthy, game over. I've been in that position. It doesn't matter how well trained the dog is, there's nothing you can do, you can't fight the physical.

So I think physical health and well being is the absolute, you know, beyond end all. Secondly then having a dog that's trained really, really well. And then once you're in that process, if this really was speaking to more inexperienced competitors, then in the process of training the dog really well, start to look internally and developing your confidence, developing on your mental game, understanding how to play the game, understanding the nuances of the sport, you know, the do's and don'ts that aren't written in the rule book, so to speak.

So I think that, that if you're looking at giving a person a guideline or a base of which to do first for me it would be physical well being and health, getting, making sure the dog's physically well. And that would come, that would have, there would be a sort of a Yin and Yang with good dog training because you're going to be, you know, noting those things. Oh, you know, the dog's a bit, he's not moving quite right, he's not, he's a bit stiff, he's not sitting.

Considering consistently that's gonna sort of have a yin and yang entity. So the time and obviously if you had a blank canvas, if you went out and got a puppy tomorrow and started this process, you hopefully would go in with some, you know, you'd have a healthy dog from healthy parents or whatever the case may be. You've picked a healthy puppy. The hope is that you're going to have that in your corner to then do the God dog training.

In the midst of then doing the good dog training, you're going to be developing your mental game. So when the day comes and you can put that entry in where you think, right, I'm going to make my debut, hopefully at that point, then you're on the spinning plates entity, really.

Melissa Breau: Sharon?

Sharon Carroll: Yeah, I think, I mean, you just need 100% of all of the above. Like, no one part.

You can't sort of really go, oh, if I have 30% of this and 50 of that, it's like every piece has to be a hundred percent or, or it just doesn't come together. So, you know, the skills need to be fluent, the dog skills, the handler skills. You need to be able to adapt to that individual dog and you also need to be able to adapt to that dog's current state.

At any point in time in the ring, you need to be doing an effective job as the teammate with the dog. I think for handlers, it's so important that we recognize and again, in this webinar, I talk about the fact that we're wearing so many different hats in the dog sports world because we're going in as a teammate and a lot of people don't acknowledge that. They think it's more about the dog.

So we're going in as a competitor. We need those skills. We're also the dog's coach, we're also their trainer. So we've got that hat on as well. We're also the advocate, guardian, sort of for the dog, similar to a parent would be in a junior athletic sport. So you've got all these hats and we can't even sort of switch hats. We have to wear them simultaneously. So in real time, we have to be making decisions with all of those hats on.

And I think Kamal pointed out before that there can be conflict points. And I talk about that in the webinar. There's often conflict points because we're saying as a competitor, maybe we're up to the last exercise. Our dog's been going really well and we're like, oh, we only have to get through this exercise and we've got the qualifier, the ribbon, the title, whatever. But we look at our dog and we go really as putting our advocate hat on.

We should be leaving the ring right now because this dog's really not comfortable or not okay. And so, or maybe we've just retired a dog earlier than we expected. Now we've got this young dog. We've got to say, okay, the trainer part of us is rushing to try and put these skills in place and do all this stuff. The competitor in us wants to get back in the ring again.

But again, we put the advocate hat on and we go, are we expecting too much of this young dog? Because they're not really ready. And so we've got these conflict points all the time that we're juggling. And so we need to really think about the responsibilities that go with each of those roles, recognize the mental and emotional load on others. Handler wearing all these different hats and trying to make all these decisions and things from all those perspectives simultaneously in real time.

For example, say when we're in the ring and we need to be working really hard to fulfill each of those roles. But I do think one of the ones, one of the areas that gets missed a little bit is the human aspect, is that human component. So I think we all know that if the dog doesn't have the skills, we're not going to be successful, you know, or if the dog hasn't been proof enough to the environment, we're not going to be successful.

But I do think a lot of the time people miss the point that, guess what, if the human's not prepared, we're also going to not be successful. And I think that part gets missed a lot. You need, you need to be doing a really effective job in the ring. You are an athlete or competitor. You need to be present. You know, you can't be thinking about the last exercise.

Oh, I shouldn't have made that mistake. Okay, now you're going to wreck the current one. You can't be thinking about, oh, if I just get this one last exercise right, I'll get this qualified. No, that's going to make this exercise wrecked as well. You've got to be thinking in the moment. So you've got. And they're skilled, they're skilled to pull your mind constantly to just the present moment.

They're skills that you have to learn and any athlete does. But in dog sports, we don't tend to think about ourselves as the competitor athlete, you know, but in other sports, sports, you know, you learn those skills because you are going in, into the performance ring. You need to have skills for being focused and not getting distracted yourself. You have to have good arousal regulation skills yourself. You know, you need to be able to be accurate with your cues and your timing and you need to have effective responses to any environmental changes or effective responses to errors.

They're all skills that athletes and competitors have. But in the dog sport world, it's often that people, people haven't even thought about their role when they go in the ring. They only think about cuing the dog and they think it's all about the dog. If I know it's a lot about the person that's going in the ring with the dog. So, yeah, we need all of you. Bob.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, Ashley?

Ashley Escobar: I like them. I don't see it as separate categories as much as things that are constantly influencing one another once we get in the ring. Right. Good dog training. It, it is what it is. It's the foundation of everything. Because without that, we really don't have anything to fall back on. Even with a really well trained dog that has some behaviors, they can still fall apart if we're not handling the dog and the questions that they have for us and their needs in that moment, or if our timing and communication become off.

And at the same time, like Sharon said, the mental role that we play, that we have on us as the handlers, it's a, it's a big, it plays a bigger role, I think, in the whole total picture than most people understand or admit to, right? Because if we're tense or distracted, it shows up in our handling it. It feeds right down into how the dog is going to respond.

So I agree. I think of it less as being like percentages of each piece and more of just a total system with checks and balances. Right. The stronger each piece is individually, the better it's all going to work together. And the more consistent and confident the whole performance between the handler and the dog are just going to flow in sync.

Petra Ford: I think people struggle because of cognitive overload.

There is so much that, like, how can you be at that last exercise and your dog looks off and you should be the advocate, but you're like, oh God, how do I pivot? And where should my hand be? And you know, like, there's so many things to think about, right? Like, why do instructors say I've told, or why does a student say, you've told me that a thousand times?

Because you're, you have so many other things in your head that you're not retaining that. Right? So I really encourage people to, first of all, like, you know, it's up, down, left, right. There's no like, progression, you need to master one step at a time, right? So, like, I can't expect you to read your dog in the moment if you're like, click praise feed, right? Like, you have to take each piece and start to make it automatic, and then take the next piece and make it automatic and then the next.

Next piece. You need to be aware of, like, your strengths and weaknesses as a learner, as a trainer, as a handler. And you need to be objective. Like, people are way too emotional, right? Like, I'm like, oh, my God, stop with the emotion. Like, just be a detective, right? Okay, My dog didn't drop. Why? Well, here are the possible reasons. Let me go down the list. Let me be a detective.

Oh, I should have supported my dog better in the ring. I didn't. All right, Right. Don't jump off the bridge. Let's just figure out, how can you do that better next time? And then you definitely need help, right? Like, I really rely on my training partners to see my weak spots, see my blind spots, like, guide me in the right direction, help me when I'm going off the rails, you know, point out what's going wrong, help me figure things out, help me figure out what piece is missing.

Why am I doing that? Why does he not understand? Like, we'll often put the dog down and then we stand there and have a little pow wow, right? So have that support. So someone can say to you, like I just said to a friend of mine the other day, you need to speak to your mental management coach because you have a block, like, all. You want to keep practicing what you're good at.

And there's this one thing that your dog struggles with, and you need to go work on it, and you never do it. You need to understand why are you not. What is your block, right? Because otherwise I've been telling you to work on this thing for three years and you haven't done it. And he did. He went to his mental magic, figured it out, and now he's working on the thing, right?

So it's like, you have to understand yourself, your learning style. You have to give yourself grace. You have to understand you're juggling 8,000 things and it's constantly shifting and changing, and there's only so much your brain can process at the same time and circling all the way back to when you see a really good performance in the ring. Like, that handler does not have to think about their footwork.

They don't have to think about. There's so many things they don't need to think about, because they've mastered all that in training, so that when they're in the ring, they can only focus on one thing, which is their dog, and supporting that dog. Like I say to my students, read and react to my dog moment by moment by moment. So I can do that in the ring, like.

Like process everything super rapid fire, because I don't need to think about all those other things. All right, so we covered a whole lot of ground, I think, in this conversation.

Melissa Breau: So I want to just give everybody a chance to kind of pull out, like, what they think their biggest, you know, point was. Or, you know, if somebody is listening to this, if you could kind of ensure that that whoever's listening or watching this was to walk away with like one big takeaway or one little thing you really want to stick in their brain, you know, what point, what point would you pick?

Like, what. What do you want to really sink in or for them to really hear or what detail would you kind of want to share, Sharon?

I think the fact that we need that there's so much that needs to be done and we need to go slowly, we need to go at the dog, our individual dog's pace. And so we can't just be looking at the calendar set a thing that suits us, and, you know, we have to be looking at, is that dog ready, make that accurate assessment, like, pull back, step out of it, and really look at the picture and say, is my dog truly ready for this experience?

And so, yeah, I think an accurate assessment is one part. And I think for me, again, because my topic this time is preparing the human. I think it's the fact that we all need to think of ourselves as competitors, as athletes, ourselves. The human part, we need to be recognizing that the same skill set that any athlete puts into a performance, we have to be looking at all of those pieces for ourselves and think of our dog as a teammate, and we're sort of the lead teammate in a two part experience.

But it's not just about the dog. It's not only about the dog. It is about us as well. Actually, I think the biggest thing is that what you see in the ring is just the surface of something so much bigger, right? It's not about chasing this perfect score, this perfect run, or trying to control every little aspect in detail. It's about building a relationship, a working relationship with the dog that understands the work and enjoys the work and trusts you enough to stay with you throughout the entire journey of it.

Right? If we can focus on that, the scores and the placements tend to follow. And if we skip it and just aim for the titles and the ribbons. Right. It usually. It catches up to you at some point. Right. So for me, the takeaway is to really invest in the dog in front of me and their specific needs that they have from me so that we can build the clarity and the confidence in the relationship between us, because that's really what holds up under pressure over time.

Petra Ford: it's not world peace, so stop taking it so darn seriously. If you're not have. Like, if you listen to everything we talked about, your brain's gonna explode and you're gonna be like, oh, my God, I have 8,000 things to do. It's just supposed to be fun. Like, we forget why we started doing this in the first place. To spend more time with our dog, to have a better relationship.

You know, if your dog makes a mistake, no, the world is not going to come crashing down. It's just part of the process. You're supposed to be having fun. So if you're training and you find that you're not laughing in your sessions and you're not enjoying your sessions, then you need to reevaluate that first. Because really, at the end of the day, that's really what it. What it's all supposed to be about.

And for me, showing is just something that drives my training. I don't even like showing that much. It just drives my training because it gives me something to shoot for. And then I trial and then I reassess, and then, you know, and I can tell you I failed everything under the sun, the biggest events, and I survived miraculously. And, like, it's fine. It's all good. You spend most of your time training.

Just have fun. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Further on the back of that is it can feel like a mountain to climb. Just concern yourself with the first step. Just the one step. Just take the one step and just focus on that. And the thing is to look at it as, you know, it's a puzzle to solve. And ultimately, it will teach you about yourself and your dog more than anything.

So enjoy that process, really, because that's, to me, what keeps me doing it after all these years, really. And as Petra says, it's meant to be a game and it's meant to be fun. So enjoy that aspect of it, really.

Melissa Breau: I love that. Well, thank you all so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Thank you for having us. Thanks, everybody. Awesome. And thanks to all of our listeners and our viewers for tuning in.

We'll be back next week, this time with Kelly Daniels and Ashley Escobar to talk about canine fitness. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast either on itunes, the podcast app of your choice, or over on YouTube to be sure you never miss an episode. 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 and video editing 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!