E237: 셰이드 화이트셀과 앤 스모라도 - "링 준비하기"

But yeah, yeah, those are my dogs. Yeah, so these classes are timely for both of you with young up and coming dogs who are working through all this stuff. Good stuff. So I know you're both teaching classes in the October session kind of on the skills that our dogs need, you know, to kind of get ready to compete. But the two classes are actually quite different. So I wanted to talk a little bit about those concepts today and just what it takes to actually get ready for trialing. So let's say I have taught my dog all the skills they need to do a perfect novice run in the sport of my choice in my backyard. What's next? Shade? Well, a lot. And Spaces in Between kind of addresses this where what I really want the dog and handler to get comfortable with is generalizing different locations. I'm generalizing all those trial cues because we tend to do specific things in our backyard that we wouldn't necessarily that we aren't able to do in a different location. So making sure that the dog has like predictable trial routines. This is a workspace. This isn't a workspace. Things like that. And just, man, making them really comfortable with different locations and all the distractions they're going to see in the trial location and making sure they're comfortable. And making sure that you, as the handler, have taught those kind of skills to make sure they're comfortable on the day of and the travel there. But also that you've got protocols in place that you can ask the dog, hey, how are you feeling? And you can go, oh, no, you're kind of overwhelmed. I need to take you for another walk around the perimeter and things like that. So also I kind of want the handler to have some, I'm losing my words here, but I want the handler to have some ideas of what to do when their dog says, hey, I'm totally overwhelmed or, hey, I'm ready to go as well. So, yeah. So there's a lot going from your backyard to a trial. Anne? Yeah, I saw your question, too, and I said a lot when I looked at it earlier. Yeah, a lot of things. One thing that Shade didn't mention is your dog working with no reinforcers on your body. You know, we always have food in our pocket or, you know, a toy under our armpit or shoved in the back of our pants. And, you know, they're not going to be there. And we can't fool the dogs. They know they're not there. So, and I remember when I first trialed my first dog, I can remember walking in the ring and I didn't have any cookies in my pocket and I felt like someone had tied my left arm behind my back.

It just, you know, so that's, I think, a big one that nobody likes to do, but we all really have to do is just prepare for that. So, and yeah, you know, generalization, you know, getting the dog out, doing it to a zillion different places. It is a big one. I, yeah, so. Yeah, so to kind of build on that, because you both talked a little bit in there about generalization, for handlers who are kind of new, maybe brand new to dogs' words, and they haven't had much exposure to the environment that's typical at a trial. So maybe they don't even know what they need to prepare their dogs for. What kind of skills is it useful to have on board to kind of help ensure that when the dog makes it into the ring, they are feeling kind of confident and comfortable? Anne, you want to go first on this one? Sure. First, I'll preface this by saying, and I have to say one of my local students like wins the big gold star award for actually doing this. I really, really recommend that new exhibitors at least go spend a day at a trial and better yet volunteer and help out because that will really give them a real up close and personal visual of what the trial environment is going to be like and what to expect. So, you know, there's that. But as far as a skill that you teach your dog, you know, the ability to chill and then work. And so and especially now, because with COVID protocols, a lot of times we have to stage. So, you know, you've got your creating area somewhere else. So you're creating in your car and then, you know, two dogs before your turn, you're supposed to be in the building, but over here. And then when you're next, you're supposed to be over here. So, you know, and in a sport like obedience where the dog's in the ring for three or four minutes, that's, you know, can be a bit of a wait. And, you know, so if your dog has the ability to relax and then when you give them a cue, oh, we're going to go in and we're going to go work now that they know what to expect. You know, so I have a little routine, you know, where my dog chills, you know, then we I have a cue that lets them know we're going to go in the ring and, you know, and he can turn on and be ready to go. So I think that's a big one. You know, I learned from my own mistakes. My older dog was taught that when he's at the other end of the leash, he should be focused on me, which seemed like a great plan. But, you know, if you've got a long staging time, their brains burned out before they even enter the ring. So, yeah. So they need to know the difference between when they're in a trial environment and they're not working.

And then when it's time to get to work. Shane? A whole list of stuff. I mean, to build on what Ann just said. And that's that's really huge. You know, knowing when to relax, because one of the things that I see a lot of times when I teach seminars or when I go to trials is is definitely the dog is having such a hard time dealing with the trial environment or the seminar environment outside of the performance. That they're exhausted by the time they actually get into the performance, you know, by the time you actually want them to do the trial skills and they have no brain left. So definitely that waiting is a huge deal. Being comfortable in a crate or comfortable in your car, comfortable on a mat by your chair, however you're going to deal with that. You know, there's a lot of travel involved. So sometimes being comfortable in a hotel, being comfortable in the car, all that kind of stuff is just huge. Even before you get to, you know, the trial location. I think that's that's really huge. And then transporting your dog from point A to point B. I can't tell you how many times I see dogs that are just like crazy at the end of the leash, sniff, sniff, sniff. And it's really hard on both the handler and the dog to go from that through the trial atmosphere, trying to get to your ring and then get some good trial performances when your dog is like, I'm not ready. I'm still sniffing around. So transporting and knowing how to get the dog from point A to point B, you know, in into the building or into the, you know, from your car to wherever. That's that's kind of huge. And then also getting to a point where, hey, kind of like Anne said, you know, this is a work environment. How can you hear your reinforcement cues? Can you, you know, do some simple behaviors? I want my dog's fluency on sit to be really fast and confident before I go in. I ask for fancy healing, you know, so this sorts of questions to be able to ask your dog there, too. So it's sort of all the stuff outside the ring. It really like handlers feeling really confident in that before they then get into the ring. So, yeah. All right. So that leaves us at a really good point to kind of step into what I wanted to talk about next, which is actually in the ring. Right. So once we do make it into the ring, what kinds of things might happen that we also need to train for kind of beyond just those basic exercises themselves. Right. So the dog maybe knows to sit and stay and do kind of the basics. But what else do they need on board to bring their best selves inside the ring? Shade, you want to go first on this one?

Well, my class really covers most of the outside of the ring. So not as much inside. But one thing, you know, I'll just mention that it's one thing. It's just really good to know when to take your leash on and off. And how to accustom your dog to that. Yeah. I saw a lot of examples this weekend where people didn't know when they were supposed to take their leash off. And then the dog, it wasn't so much a hot mess. But, you know, the judge is like saying, hey, take your leash off. And the handler's like trying to get the leash off. And the dog's like, what are you doing around my neck? So, you know, when that's part of the trial routine or part of the entry into it, I really think that's a skill that we don't often practice. That might need to be practiced a little more of reaching down and kind of messing with our dog's neck. So, yes, that's a good example. One of the things we like to I like to make sure my students focus on a lot. It's in the ring is an obedience. This is an obedience specific is transitions. You know, going from exercise finish to the setup of the next of the next exercise, because a lot of handlers lose their dogs in that in that in that time because the dogs don't know what they're supposed to be doing. So they've got this cute behavior. They just got done healing. They're you're cute. Heal. They're doing this exercise finished. And now the handlers kind of going away and they're like, am I supposed to go with you? Am I supposed to stay? What am I supposed to do? And they get stressed and then they start sniffing. And then, you know, it just, you know, rolls downhill from there. So I like to I really like to recommend my students train a really good solid transition. You know, this is how we go from and maybe a couple of them. So you might, you know, depending on the dog's brain that day, you know, the dog's super high energy and feels like, you know, they need to release some maybe, you know, it's a more energetic transition. So they can release a little bit of energy or maybe they're feeling low energy. So you don't want to use much, you know, you know, you need a few of them. But if I could at least get all my students to do one, train one good transition, I think that that would be really helpful. And another thing I like to focus on, too, are delays in the ring, you know, where everything just stops because, well, I don't know, the steward who's supposed to bring you the dumbbell has disappeared.

And so you have to wait. So just having a plan and a trained thing that you do if, you know, you have to wait for 30 seconds for the next thing to start, which 30 seconds doesn't sound like a long time. But it is if you've got your dog sitting in heel position focused on you. It's that's a really hard on your dog. Yeah, that's a huge deal. Training those delays and making sure the handler knows what to do. And the dog is accustomed to that as a trained behavior. Yeah, I see so many performances go downhill when the handler is like, oh, my gosh, what do I do? Because I've got to wait, you know. So, yeah, that's a really good point. I made Thor Hartley years ago wait over a minute for the articles in Utility one time. I just, the article steward had disappeared. And, you know, they're going articles, articles. And my dog's sitting there in heel position waiting for those. And I was just like, I hadn't thought that through yet. And, you know, he sat there in heel that whole time. And I got to tell you, he exploded in the next exercise. You know, I think it was one of the utility exercises that ends in a recall. He flew across that ring and just pushed on my chest with his front paws and started licking my face. And it all went back to that 60 seconds in heel just sitting there waiting, you know. And you better believe I trained what we're going to do if there's a delay after that. I know. And you mentioned you trained it. So what did you come up with? What solution did you have? What do you teach him? I just, I use the release cue from heel. And then for him, he likes to do spin left, spin right. So we do some, you know, left, right tricks and, you know, wave. We just have a handful of little tricks, you know, that he likes to do that we can, you know, play our time with if there's some weird delay like that. Yeah. Yeah, I was caught off guard this weekend. And I know better than this, where we set up for a long healing pattern and the other person is going to their long down. And oftentimes we have to wait exactly like you said in heel position. And that wait can actually if it if it's like new people or whatever can be up to two minutes. And I had trained it a little, but not enough. And I could tell that Talek was like, do I pay attention to you? Do I look around? Like, what do I do? And I caught myself as a handler going, I'm forgetting, like, am I allowed to step out of heel position here? Like Shunson is so static and so formal. Sometimes you don't know quite like within the rules what you're allowed to do there. And I was like, I need to think this through for my next trials.

And for my dog, that'll make him vocal on that first step and forge on that first step. So that's exactly what he did. He did a little wine and forged and then caught himself. And I'm like, I need to have a plan for this. So, yeah. And what a good reminder that it's important to know the rules for your sport, right? Yeah. You need to know what your options are and what you can't do. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So how old does your dog or puppy need to be before you start working on some of these skills, guys? So I know you both have like young. I'm putting that in quotes because they're not baby, baby puppies anymore, but young dogs who are kind of up and coming. So and when do you start working on some of this? It's never too early. Seriously. Seriously. I mean, I started doing things with my puppy when he was, you know, really little, you know, working on things like just putting the cookies in a bowl up on the shelf and doing a few things and using a, you know, a reinforced cue that I used for that, going and getting it from the bowl. So, you know, he got used to, you know, from, you know, just being a young puppy that just because the food isn't in my pocket or in my hand, you know, doesn't mean it's not coming. So and even things like generalization. I mean, sure. When, you know, I think I, he was just a few months old and, you know, sure. I did different things then than I do now. But, you know, I could take him places and, you know, can you look at me? You know, yes. Okay. You know, things like that. Yeah. It's just like Anne said, as soon as possible. And one thing I was reminded of that one of my students recently said something about, okay, when you go to a different environment, you lower your criteria. And I've always had a hard, I've always had a problem with that saying. And so I really kind of thought it through. And it's not that you lower criteria. It's that you ask for easier skills. You lower the complexity. Oh, God, Shane. I'm so glad you said that. I know. You don't ask for fancy healing that they could do at home if they can't, like, come in to heal. Or they can't look at you. Or they can't look at eat food. So you lower the complexity of the skills. You don't ask for fancy healing and accept less than fancy healing. So I feel like that saying really gets misunderstood, maybe. Yeah. That always bugged me, too. I'd be like, what do you mean lower your criteria? You just ask for something easier or a trick where you don't care about the criteria, right? If I ask for a spin left, I don't really care if it's a perfect spin left or not. But you knock it out for, like, perfect healing.

Because if the dog can't do, like, the spin left, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. That's a huge deal that I think often gets miscommunicated. So. And I totally got off subject. That's okay. It's okay. Yeah. All right. So I know that you're both fairly experienced competitors. So I thought it might be interesting to just ask you what kind of unexpected things you've run into while trialing. And, you know, maybe how your dogs handled it. And if they didn't handle it, what did you do? Kind of going forward to make sure that if it happened again, you were more prepared. Shay, do you have any crazy stories for us? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I have one time I was competing at regionals with my dog, Reiki. And a dog broke on the long down when I recalled. So I recalled my dog and the dog broke on the long down. Which is not uncommon at the BH level, but is pretty uncommon at, like, regional level. At the highest, at Shuts and Threat. So I had two dogs coming to me. And then, just like Ann mentioned earlier in this podcast, I then had to wait in focused heel position for the other handler to collect their dog and put them back on the long down, which is all the way across the field. So, now, in hindsight, I would do exactly what Ann said she now trains. And then I would break the dog out of heel and I would do some easy motion-relieving stress. Because then you're stuck. The dog just did a hard behavior, came to you with another dog coming to him, finished in heel. And then you make them sit there for two minutes in focused heel. So, yeah. So, I definitely have plans for that. I know exactly what I'm going to do. And especially depending on the dog that I have. I might have different things that I train depending on the dog itself. So, like, I would definitely have a different protocol for onesie who would take exception to another dog running towards him than I would for Talik or Raik. So, that also needs to come into it. Change it up due to the dog that you actually have. So, yeah. Yep. Unexpected things always happen. It's good to have them. That's so intimidating. Very intimidating. Intimidating to the dog. I think he didn't do a good front. Because they're aware of a dog running towards them. You know? So, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's just, you know, you got two intact males on the field. You're thinking, you know, what am I going to do if a dog fight? You know, things like that accidentally happen. So, and this situation ended up fine. But, yeah. So. Yeah. Absolutely scary. And what about you? What kind of crazy stuff have you had? Well, we had... Sea Wags is another dog sport organization. And they were at their...

This was their 10-year national... I don't know. It was like several years ago with Hartley. And I was in the obedience ring. And I guess the roof had sprung a leak. It was raining out. While we were in the ring. And it was a rectangular ring. And we were down at the end, you know, kind of at the far end. And meanwhile, this leak had sprung in the other end. And the stewards went in there. They actually went in there. And they pulled the ring gates into a point. So now it wasn't rectangular anymore. It kind of had a little V. As they moved the ring gates in. And they stuck a bucket under the leak to catch the water. All this was going on. And I had no idea. I had no idea that was going on. And, you know, we're down at the other... It was a fairly... It wasn't... It was a normal-sized, you know, obedience ring. But all I noticed was at one point, you know, the judge had us, you know, set up for certain exercises. Not in the place that she had told me she was going to. And so when we were all done, we were completely glad. I turned around and looked. And I see this bucket and that ring gates. And all of this moved in. I'm like, what's happening? Oh, the roof sprung a leak. But I was actually really proud of that, though. Because that told me that I was just staying focused on my dog. You know? And that's one of the things I really think is super important. Is that, you know, if we expect them to stay focused on us, we need to stay focused on them. So I don't know. But that was funny. I'm glad I didn't know. Talk about keeping your cool, though. The judge, like, changes where you're supposed to set up. Like, that alone would throw most people. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, yeah, it does. It does. But I think I was the first person in the ring that day. And so I hadn't, you know, like, we'd done the briefing. So I knew where things were supposed to be. But yet I hadn't watched, you know, a bunch of teams do it. So I think I just kind of went, oh, all right, we're over here. Right. It's not what she said. But OK. So. All right. So let's say we have a young dog or we have a new dog. And we've just finished our first trial and we were maybe disappointed by the results. So talk to me about how you kind of look back over a trial or a run, figure out kind of what went wrong, but in a productive way. Right. So how do you figure out what opportunities for future training are based on kind of what happens in a trial or a run and then kind of develop a plan, you know, kind of patch some of those holes. And you want to take this one first? Sure. Sure. So first of all, I always, always, always, always, always focus on what went right.

And in fact, I've even gotten to where the point where I don't even sometimes think about what went wrong for a day or two, maybe even a week. Oh, if it's a week, it means I'm really disappointed and I have to be emotionally ready to look at it. I usually get video. Can't always get video, but I usually get video. But but just for example, my young dog, Dare, just started, you know, his agility career. And I've been really pleased with his work. He stayed focused. He's, you know, he's, you know, doing the obstacles I cue him to do might not be the right one, but he's doing the ones I'm cueing. You know, he's, you know, he's not visiting bar setters. He's not, you know, running amok. He's, you know, he's focused and doing his job. So I've been really pleased with that. But I, this is where keeping records kind of matters because we tend to block out certain things. But I noticed like when, you know, that he'd had a couple table faults and I'm like, oh, okay. So he's kind of bouncing the table. He's jumping on it and just hopping off the other side, which is not acceptable, acceptable. In any case, you obedience, you can still qualify with it at the novice level, but not at the, not at the, you know, master excellent level. So I'm like, all right. So then when I thought about it and looked through all my rooms, I'm like, you know, I really hadn't trained a true table behavior. I just kind of took it for granted. The table's there. You hop on it and you stay on it until I tell you to get off. Well, he didn't know that he thought, okay, you just get on it, hop off the other side, get back on. I'll wait till you let me off. And so, you know, I spent, you know, probably, you know, a couple months in the summer just working on the table. And now, you know, table behavior is fine. But yeah, there's always those little holes. Like, I mean, as thorough as I try to be before I enter my young dog, I always do find some holes in the training. And, you know, that's where some record keeping and my record keeping is very cursory. I'm not going to tell anybody to do anything really laborious because you just, it's too much. It's too much for me. But yeah, if you, you know, if you're really honest with yourself to find those holes and then you can patch them. But even like you said, you try and get video and then you noticed over several trials or several runs, you're seeing the same behavior. It wasn't just that it happened once and then you were like, now we've got to create a rehab plan. Right, yeah. Yeah, no, it happened over a couple of trials.

And I said, oh, yeah, I actually didn't really train that. It's one of those things that's a pain in the butt to have in group classes because everybody, every dog height needs a different table height. And they're not, they're kind of a pain in the butt to assemble. So they're real easy for instructors to, eh, I don't want to put the chart table down there. That's time consuming, you know. Yeah. What about you, Shade? Well, we just had our first trial on Saturday. So this is very timely. And yeah, I always try to get video because you remember stuff quite differently than what actually happened most of the time. So it's really important to get that impartial video thing. And in Shudson, the judge gives you a critique. And this judge really gave me a critique. Like he mentioned every single thing wrong. And it's, while I appreciate it, it was definitely a little bit like, oh, my gosh, it felt better than what the critique was. So anyway, I'm always pretty good at being able to see the good part and then also reframing the slight disappointments of, okay, I need to work harder on this and forming a plan. I'm really good about that. And I would say that TALIC did very well and very expected, like very expected young dog stuff. But it also made me realize how I actually like to trial dogs pretty early in their career, like earlier than three, because you really want to know what's going to be difficult for this dog. And it might be different than you know. And it's important to get out there and test your training so that with everything stripped away, you know, all your reinforcers, all your tools, if you use that. And for you to go, okay, this is a very good look at where I'm at. So it's always, it always, TALIC always gets me sort of fired up of, okay, I'm going to do this. And also kind of like Ann said, whoops, I haven't actually trained that. So in my case, this trial happened where I do two recall cues. And one means speed that I always usually break and release with a TALIC. And the other one means perfect front. And so in AKC obedience, I just use the perfect front one, but in, because the preciseness matters much more. But in Shudson, I use the speed one because it's a full field recall. And then the end of it is a default front. Well, TALIC told me in no uncertain terms as he smashed into me that I haven't taught him to collect himself enough from speed. And so, yeah, the judge remarked that I moved and I basically said, wouldn't you have, as you've got this dog coming towards you with no intention of stopping.

So, yes, I need to go back and train that recall because he has a good front when he does a good front. So, yeah. Yeah. So, TALIC is fun, but also informative. All right. So, as I mentioned kind of at the beginning, you're each teaching class on kind of skills in these buckets, right, this coming term. But they're quite different in their actual, like, the actual things that you're focusing on. So, when I looked at them last night, I sort of mentally thought of shades, spaces in between classes, kind of the skills we need outside of the competition ring so that we bring our best dog into that ring when it's our turn. And Anne's class more as building the skills you need for in the ring so that your dog can hold up and kind of hold up under pressure and perform their best in a potentially trying environment. So, I want to have you each just kind of share a little more about your class, kind of what you cover, who might want to consider it, just so folks can maybe decide for themselves which class is what their dog needs and what they need. Shade, do you want to talk about spaces first? Sure. I think you hit the nail on the head. Spaces really covers the stuff that happens outside the ring, you know, how to be comfortable, both dog and handler, how to train those skills. I really want handlers to understand that training those outside skills, that waiting around time is crucial and huge for your dog's mental health and also crucial for the next trial. A lot of times our dogs can go into the trial situation and be kind of stressed and kind of do okay, you know, in the ring with all the clever skills that we've taught them. But if they're not really comfortable in the outside whole day, then that really affects you the next trial because your dog gets into that situation and goes, oh, no, I remember this. It was really stressful. So I, so spaces really includes that outside time and hopefully making both handler and dog feel more comfortable and have more of a plan. So, yeah. And specifics, it's more, it's, it's about down stay. It's about creating. It's about asking your dog, you know, hey, can you hear me? It's about transports. It's about, it's about predictable routines, knowing when to work and when to not, waiting your turn and things like that. So specifically. Anne, you want to talk a little bit about your class that you've coming up? Yeah. So my class pulls together all the little things that are so easily overlooked, you know, when you're, when you're preparing to trial and seem to be difficult, not impossible, but difficult to include in a group class.

And so many newer competitors really rely heavily on group classes for trial prep. And group classes are great for a lot of things, but they have a hard time covering things like being in the ring without reinforcers. You know, those transitions tend to get neglected because everybody gets excited about, you know, working on healing, you know, and, you know, utility go outs and stuff like that. But, you know, these other little things, you know, tend to get the groans, I guess, you know. And like she said, not having this stuff fully trained before your trial, you know, you might, the dog might do fine the first trial or two. And then by the third one, it starts to kind of fall apart. And, you know, I've heard people say the dogs become ring wise. And I, I hate that term because it sort of sounds like the dog's like, this is what a trial, I don't want to do this for you. And really, I don't think it's that. I think it's just stress because they were faced with things they weren't prepared for. And now they're back in that trial environment. And, you know, where the reinforcers, the lack of reinforcers comes in. I mean, I think a lot of dogs get, get stressed because they think, they think they're doing something wrong because they didn't get their reinforcers. Um, so anyway, so my class just pulls together all that kind of stuff, you know, working without reinforcers, transitions for obedience, planning for delays in the ring. You know, when you're exiting the ring, when you're coming in the ring, you know, just going through that threshold can be a big deal too for a lot of dogs. Um, I've had agility handlers say to me, you know, if they're going in the ring ahead of me, you know, can you reach over here and make this sure this gate closes softly because the sound of the clang of the gate, because we have gates that open and close and they clang shut. That clang scares some dogs. I mean, there's just things, there's like all kinds of little things like that. Um, so having said all that, um, uh, I think that my class is for anyone. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I also have a number of, um, lectures that are directed to total newbies, to complete newcomers, you know, so like how to, how to read a premium or what to look for on a premium that's important. Um, how to read your judging program so that you don't show up at 8 a.m. when your class doesn't start till 3 p.m. Um, how to find matches. You know, we talk about, you know, going to these practice matches and run throughs is really important. How do you find them? Because they're not usually on club websites.

You know, it's like, if you don't know, you know, he has to tell you about them. Well, if you don't know anybody yet, how are you supposed to find out about these things? So, you know, so I have some lectures on, you know, how to find out about those things. So there's things like that. So I would say that my class is really for anyone who is not completely inexperienced, but had some experience, but just wants to do a more thorough job in their trial preparation. You know, maybe they've done a few trials and it just didn't feel so good. And, you know, they want some help before the next trial, or maybe they're on their second or third dog and say, you know, I want to do a better job of this. You know, they just want some guidance and support in, in how to do this and not make it stressful for them and their dog and the process. And then it's also for people who are complete newbies, you know, who've never trialed before. And, you know, what do I do? You know, so. Yeah. So I didn't necessarily include this in the questions, but I think it'd be good to kind of have you each tack on to your previous answer, which is what skills does the dog need kind of coming into your class? Like, so for you and like looking at like how close do they need to be to actually trialing before they can start working on some stuff? Because you both said that you start these skills super early on in your own training. So I'm kind of curious what you need coming in. That's a great question, Melissa, because I was even thinking about that when I was winding down from my last one. I thought, oh, I've already talked too long. I actually think it's good. Well, it's good for anyone who wants to trial in the future. It's I mean, if so. So this class starts October 1st. If you're thinking you want to be ready for a December 15th trial, I'd say it's a little late. But, you know, I wouldn't want to, you know, discourage anyone from trying. But I would say anyone who's like thinking about, you know, who's who's training skills and say, hey, I want to do a trial. You're thinking about trialing in the next year or so. Now's a really great time to be working on this. Excellent. Shade, what about you? What skills do folks need coming in for spaces? I've sort of made it as a kind of as a workshop sort of class and less of a training class. I'm expecting you to come in with some training chops already. And so that you mostly know, you know, how you're going to train your dog. You've got most of your stuff trained. And this is more about let's now do this in this environment.

So one of the things I concentrate on is having five different locations that you actually practice each skill in. And that would be easy, medium, hard locations to really get the generalization. So, yeah. So I want you to have access to those. And I want you to already have kind of a training language established with your dog. You can be sort of new. You can have a young dog because all this stuff is good if you start it earlier. But but yeah. Anyway, I think I'm making sense. Stuck in my head is something that Anne said earlier and I think kind of encompasses both of our classes is I want the dog and the handler to I don't want it to be such a jump from training in your group class to trialing. You know, and so I feel like, you know, Anne mentioned the dogs becoming ring wise. Well, because it's such a different thing for them. It's that we have the treat on our body all the time when we're training in group class or we have the toy in our hand. And we don't go into those stressful environments with all this, all these big crowds and people staring at the dog in the ring. And we often don't even enter a ring. We don't even practice like entering between two things. And so it's such a different experience for our dogs. And I think that one thing that we need to realize as handlers teaching with the goal of trialing is that we need to try to train as much of that as possible and have it not be such a big jump. And I think probably both our classes are really important for that thing of limiting the stress on both handler and dog. And I know I keep talking about the handler, but boy, I know that I as a handler, when I know what I'm doing, it makes my nerves so much less. And so it's just like I know when I've trained those transitions or when I know that my dog is knowing his marker cues before he goes into the ring, it's like I just feel so much more confident. And I really believe that we can make our handlers and our students feel more confident when they're like, OK, I know what to do. And I know when to take my leash off. I know how my dog is doing. I have their head, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, yeah. So I just kind of wanted to add that. Yeah, I love that. And I love that kind of reminder point, too. I mean, even just to share a story really quickly with Levi, his very first seminar where he had a working spot was a Deb Jones seminar. And we were doing what should have been fairly easy skills, right? We were working on her location specific marker cues kind of for building a concept of them.

And it was the first time he'd worked with a whole bunch of people staring at him. And he was like, Mom, I can't do this. We had to bail from working seminar. Unfortunately, I had another dog in the car who'd come in and work. But he was like, I can't eat here. So a lot of times we don't even think about stuff like that, right? Like I picked an easy seminar. It wasn't going to be a big crowd. I thought he'd be able to do it. And he told me he couldn't. So I want to kind of round out our chat by giving you each just a chance to maybe pull out a final takeaway or drill down the conversation into one kind of piece of information you really want people to walk away with. So, Anne, what would your takeaway or your final golden nugget here be? Well, we have to remember that trials are different than training. And even if the trial is being held at a building you train in, a trial is different than training. You know, the energy is different. Everything smells different. Everything sounds different. Everything looks different. Trials are different than training. So, you know, what it's our job to do is think about all those differences and prepare for them. And, you know, and to pick up on, you know, one of the things Shade said, you know, I always find that if I have a plan, you know, for every little thing, you know, of course things come up that you don't expect, like a leak in the ceiling or, you know, a dog escaping from, you know, jumping from another ring and coming after you. But, you know, or things like that. But, I mean, if I feel like I'm going in with a plan for, you know, what am I going to do if my dog gets distracted and is sniffing a spot on the floor? I feel more confident going in. And then those things are less likely to happen. You know, I mean, it really just makes me feel better. And then when I feel better, my dog feels better. So, but that's it. Trials are different than training, no matter what. It's important. Yeah. Okay. Same sort of stuff. Yeah. You train as much as you can and you realize that it's really difficult to replicate that environment for your dog. So, what happens in that environment really matters because then it's difficult to replicate. So, you want to make sure that you've prepared your dog and yourself as much as possible. So, that it's always going to be different. But, though, so it's not as different. And it's not one event stressful learning for your dog, which can happen for sure. So, yeah. Prepare as much as you can and realize that there's lots of little things that aren't covered in your group class on the training skills.

To kind of pull that together, I just gave, through FENSI, a series of healing classes. So, it took three basic classes to teach healing. And one of the questions somebody asked at the end was like, oh, can you cover, you know, reducing reinforcement? I'm going to trial in October. And it's like, no. This series of classes is just on actually getting the behavior. Reducing reinforcement is another whole, like, year. And probably not trialing in October when you've just taken class. You know, we can't go from, like, you know, 20 steps of healing being really expensive for the dog to being able to trial among all the distractions and stuff like that. So, I guess what I kind of want people to understand is you've got the behaviors. You've achieved the behaviors. You've trained all your clever, sexy stuff, you know. But then I want to give equal merit to the transitions, the plans, the not having a food in your hand, you know, remote reward. All that kind of stuff bears just as much time to attention to detail as the other, the sexy stuff that we get into our sports for. So, yeah. Think of it as sexy life skills. Or, you know, something like that. Let's replay it. Super important. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you both so much for coming on the podcast. I think this was super helpful. And it'll be really great for folks that are at that point where they're trying to get into the ring. So, thank you both. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. As always. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We will be back next week to talk about healing, speaking of, with Nicole Wiebush and Nancy Gaglardi Little. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. To have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Line. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.