E205: 로레타 몰러(Loretta Mohler) - "좁은 공간에서의 어질리티"

breeds, non-border collies at least, playing agility these days. And kind of wanted to ask what your thoughts were on non-traditional breeds in the sport. I get asked this a lot, actually. I work with a lot of, whether you want to call them non-traditional or off-breeds. I kind of don't like the word off-breed. But I work with a lot of them. And I work with my sheriff border collies as well. But I love seeing something besides a traditional breed running agility. There are so many other breeds of dogs that can run agility really well. And I love the diversity and the thought process of every dog I meet. And I think that just because a dog is traditional versus non-traditional doesn't mean they're necessarily easy or hard to train. I think you just have to take different approaches depending on the individual dog. There are so many different factors with each individual dog. And one of my favorite things about teaching agility is trying to figure out what each team needs regardless of whether they're traditional or non-traditional. But it's really fun when someone does a phenomenal job of training a dog that may not be known for being the perfect agility dog and just seeing that dog running hard and being competitive. It's, I don't know, it just takes my breath away. Awesome. So I know not only kind of when it comes to breed, but you've also kind of worked with a wide variety of dogs in terms of competitiveness, right? So from world team members, I mentioned, you know, you coached the world team for a while to teams that, you know, play just for fun. You know, are there things that you feel like you've learned just because you coach such a wide variety? That's a really, really good question. That variety is goals are always important and each person is going to have a different goal. And my job as an instructor or coach is to help each team with those goals. And no matter who we are, we all started running agility because it looked fun, right? We didn't go to an agility trial or see it on TV and go, wow, that looks super boring. I don't, I think I want to tell it. So we all started in the just for fun category. And I really hope no matter where you're at and which end of the spectrum you're on, you're still looking for, you know, to have fun with your dog. And so regardless of the goals, I feel that you also have to understand that good training is important for a team, regardless of playing just for fun or a world team competitor, because confusion can be tough for the dog. So if we have less clean training, then we end up with a more confused dog, regardless of what level they're at.

So knowing the goals and matching the training to those goals is very important. And I think that experience in itself has helped me grow as an instructor. And I love the variety. And I think that's what makes me really enjoy my job is I love that I can just one minute be working on the perfect front cross. And then the next minute, just working on, can my dog pay attention to me if another dog's in the room? I love their variety. And so that helps me just enjoy my job that much more. Are there things maybe that kind of both ends of that spectrum have in common that we wouldn't, wouldn't expect? I think something that sometimes can be overlooked is, you know, number one, having a sound dog, regardless of your goals, regardless of the dog's breed or, you know, makeup, if they're made from multiple breeds or you have no idea, a sound dog, you know, is very, very important for the sport. Keeping your dog fit is also a huge part of this game. And I think that that can be overlooked sometimes until you have an injury for your dog. So regardless of what side of the spectrum you're on, as mentioned earlier, clean training, knowing exactly what you want from the dog and how to teach the dog to perform the behaviors. There's bad training, like I said, at all levels of competition, it's important to have a clear training plan. Another one that can be really overlooked is working on your mental management. So agility should be fun. And if you're, you know, nervous or anxious or worried, regardless of what end of the spectrum you're on, it can't be fun if you're having those kinds of emotions. So even my just for fun people will still work on some mental management stuff so they can keep perspective and be consistent for their teammates. I love that. You mentioned, you know, this, this idea of goals earlier. And I think for some dog handler teams, right? So they may only have access to equipment and then they feel like they may have limited access and that makes it harder for them to kind of achieve those goals. So what kind of what's your advice for a handler? You know, they want to play the game, they're excited to play with their dog, but maybe they can only get access to that stuff a few times a month. I actually think that people that don't have a facility full of equipment have to do a bit better training. And here's why I'm saying that, because they have to focus on foundations. That's the only options that they have in a small space, especially if you're training inside your house and you have very limited ability to get on equipment.

So you have to think of all the things you can do at home to build on those skills you need. So contact training, little bits of handling, impulse control, skills with one or two jumps, distractions. Those are just a few of those things. If you get creative, you can work on them at home. And so much of agility can be done with five minutes of training here and there. And then when you get access to equipment, you don't have to worry about your dog being, you know, quote unquote rusty and having to work on those foundations when you have your equipment time. Or if you get used to having equipment all the time, it's kind of not exciting to go back to just rewarding contacts, right? Like, ooh, I'm going to go reward my two on, two off. It's not very fun when you have an entire course to do. So this, in a way, is better because it kind of forces you to really focus on the foundation skills that your dogs need and that do break down over time. You're always training your dog. If you could just get your dog trained and that was it, that would be super great. But the bottom line is that's not how it works. And so if you, because you can't have constant access to equipment, have to go back to those foundations because that's what you can train. You're going to have a more solid foundation in the end. So when you're working with your dogs, your own dogs, you know, how much of your time is spent kind of doing full courses with all the equipment kind of all set up versus, you know, not? So along the same lines as what I was talking about with the previous question, I work a lot of short drills, things that test certain skills. If my dog, you know, nails the drill, I'll move on. I don't like to do the same thing over and over again. That's just not who I am. I get bored very easily. And so then if they're doing really great on something, I might put it in a course, run something designed to test that specific skill. So for example, a threadle or a serpentine. But a lot of my stuff is short coursework or foundation work, rewarding and building value in those behaviors that I need when I do get to equipment, full coursework or a trial that I want to make sure I've put enough value and enough experience in for the dog to really want to do that behavior when the time comes that I really need it. Do you use a specific handling system? Well, I would say mine is kind of a combo. Overall, it's going to be motion-based. So like your Linda Mecklenburg, Awesome Paws, some One Mind Dog. But I've also started adding a lot more verbals as I see things changing in relation to course design and course challenges presented.

Agility courses evolve very quickly year to year. And so you always have to kind of reevaluate or at least I feel I need to reevaluate exactly what I'm doing with my dogs. And what I found is, you know, I'm getting older every day and verbals are becoming a much more important part of my handling. And so for me, if you say the word, you know, handling system, I always think of just a consistent set of cues that your dog always knows. So they can evolve, they can change if the course designs, you know, do present that. And so I'm always trying to stay up to date on those kinds of things. But yeah, definitely emotion-based and then adding more verbals in as I see the challenges being presented. So how do you kind of handle that then if you get a student who was raised, I guess, kind of in a really specific handling system? How does that kind of integrate, you know, with what you're teaching as a teacher? Well, lucky for me, I guess. I'm lucky maybe for my dogs, my earlier dogs. But lucky for me, I started in a position-based system, so Derek-type method, and then moved into more motion-based, which I said before, Mecklenburg. I also have a lot of experience with one, my dog, and also some more verbal systems like J&J and some other ones. So I can meet anyone where they are, and I can help them improve their communication and identify areas that they can improve upon to help their dog or maybe to work on a skill. I am definitely not a put-everything-in-a-box type of person. I think rules are more guidelines. That's just how I am as a human and as a dog trainer because a lot of times I just don't think I fit in boxes. And I think many of the dogs that I started training when I first started my journey that weren't mine, they were my students, I call them my island of misfit toys because they didn't fit in other people's training boxes. And so I find that I want to know a lot about a lot of stuff, and I want to be able to help people where they're at and help them take the next step forward on whatever they need to do with their path. Are there aspects of agility? We were talking before about the equipment piece that you feel like maybe get overlooked because folks tend to focus so much on equipment, tiny pieces that should be broken out, worked on, even without the equipment or without a ton of space or that not having access suddenly becomes an advantage. Yeah. I mean, I totally get a beautiful agility field full of pretty shiny equipment is super fun. I understand that running lots of obstacles is also super, super fun. And it's really hard to make foundations attractive sometimes for people.

Make them sexy. Right. I didn't know if I was allowed to say sexy or not, but yes, that's the word I would use. So thank you for allowing me that. But the behaviors are not instinctive. Obviously, running is, but a lot of the stuff that breaks down, the dogs want to drive back to their instincts. You can call it instinctive drift. You can call it whatever you want. But start lines, stop contacts, right? Dogs don't run to the bottom of a hill and slam to a stop. Weave poles. They don't do that. So, you know, for some dogs, it's collection, something that needs to be revisited often. It's not something natural. And so the dog, you know, dogs that need collection, they just want to run, right? You may have dogs that naturally want to take life at a little slower pace. And we have to, you know, work on that running. And so those things that tend to break, tables are another great example, right? Lots of people have a hard time with tables because whether they believe it should be, you know, completely thrown out of an agility venue or if it's just a menace or some people love tables because they can catch their breath. That's reality, right? But these things that are non-instinctive for the dogs, it's a great time to build value. It's a great time to really put a lot of money in the bank so that these dogs enjoy these processes as opposed to fighting with their handlers. Fitness, so many dogs lose conditioning in the winter if they're not running courses. I mean, great example is tomorrow it's going to be 22 below zero at my house, which I've learned there's always someone that's colder. However, negative 22 is like, that's cold. So you're probably not going to go for a walk tomorrow. But, you know, fitness is going to be very, very important and you can work on it in your house. Working on distractions, you know, whether the dogs gets excited or they get distracted and go low, depending on that, you can work on that kind of stuff. Very important pieces to the overall picture. I always tell my students that if you are rusty when you come out in the spring, that tells me that you haven't been working on the non-sexy parts of agility. And we got to somehow make those exciting or make them fun, you know, so that the dogs come out in the spring and they're like, oh, yeah, I've been working on my skills all winter long and I got this. And you won't have that lag. You won't have, you know, like a lot of us aren't trialing. And then, you know, when things open up or if we feel like trialing again, don't have that rusty situation where your dogs just haven't done some of their core behaviors in a long time.

And so that's going to be very, very important when you get out there, you know, running. It's not just about running courses. It's about how you get to and from one through 20 in order and about those core behaviors that you need on course. And I'd imagine, you know, you're talking about winter, which obviously is a deterrent in some ways, but also with the state of the world and COVID over the last year, I'm sure lots of people are feeling a little rusty. Absolutely. And it's really funny. And I mean, it's not just winter, right? For those of you that are in the, you know, when summer is, which I can't even imagine this, you know, people make fun of me and laugh at me when I say it's going to be 22 below zero and we're all going to live. But if someone's saying, you know, it's 120 degrees in Arizona and I'm like, I don't want that. I would still be using that same stuff if I was in Arizona, it was 120 degrees because that just sounds pretty miserable too. So, you know, you've got plenty you can do with the dogs. It just sometimes you have to be a little more creative. Yeah. Which ties nicely into kind of what I want to talk about next, which is your class this session. Agility in the house. Yes. What skills do you work on in building the class? Foundations, foundations, foundations, right? Those sexy, sexy. We're going to call them sexy, even though most people don't think they're sexy. Those sexy behaviors that are really the blueprint for your agility runs, contacts, start lines, collection, distractions, building drive, calming over arousal. Those things that your dog can have issues with if not worked on consistently. The pieces that break. The pieces that fall apart. Those pieces that you're like, oh yeah, we haven't done agility in six months. My dog's going to be really rusty. It's also good for you because we get rusty as well. And so it's just those behaviors that are going to break. We're really focusing on those. And if folks have not looked at your syllabus, you name your lectures fun things. So they should go at least look at the fun things. Yeah, it's all based on songs. I actually, I play musical instruments and I sing. Not right now, of course, because of COVID. But in a band, play bass, guitar, even some drums and do some singing. And so I was like, you know what? I'm going to have fun with this. And yeah. So if some of the titles look weird, just think about songs or go look some songs up. Maybe you'll get some new inspiration. There you go. So how big of a space do folks actually need to do the class if they're considering or they're thinking about it?

So I tried to design this class to fit in a small kind of living room. So I actually based it on one of my rugs in my living room. So it was like a 10 by 12 or 8 by 10. Not a big space. Now granted, if you have a large dog, you know, we're talking Danes and stuff like that. A bigger space would be a bit better, obviously. Um, but you can get this all done in a small space. That was definitely my goal. And if you, you know, go and if you get in the class and you can see dogs from all different sizes, we have tiny little terrier mixes all the way up to, we do have a Dane in there this session. Um, and so it's, it's designed to make training efficient in a small space. Excellent. Um, how much time are we talking, you know, that they should be spending each day if they sign up? So remember I get bored easily, right? So if you're effective with your training time, five minutes, a couple of times a day, um, it's easy to fit into a busy lifestyle. You'll, you'll spend more time probably editing your videos. If you're, you know, if you're a gold or a silver, um, or looking at your own videos, please bronzes do that. It's, it's a wonderful tool. Um, but you'll spend more time doing that than the training. My, my goal is for it to be fun, easy, lighthearted. Um, now I say easy, if you're a beginner, we've got some advanced teams in there that we're doing some fun stuff with to make stuff a little more challenging. Um, but the goal is going to be just for you not to be training and training all day. So it's just five minutes, a couple of times a day. Your dog can get a lot done. Excellent. Anything else folks, you know, need to know or that you want to kind of share about the class? Um, actually I just touched on it a little bit, but it's, one of my favorite classes to teach. And the reason is I think is because I get beginners and advanced teams. So with my handling classes, you know, it's geared towards either beginners, intermediate or advanced. Um, but this stuff, it's, it's fun to see either beginners learning the new stuff or advanced people going back and working foundations and really challenging their training. Um, you get to see all the different ways we get these foundations trained. So if you watch the golds, you learn how to prove a ton. And then if you're an advanced team and then for beginners, you learn how to break things down. And so again, I love the variety. I get bored easily. This is one of my favorite classes because I can really push someone that has great skills, but wants to brush off on stuff and really show them how to take their skills to the next level.

And then I can also break things down for beginners. So I love it. When you say beginner, how beginner are we talking? Uh, we're talking a dog that has never seen equipment, a dog that can, you know, as long as they can learn to focus on a cookie, we can get it done. Um, and I also have people that are doing the class that have dogs that are in upper levels and they're just working on revisiting foundations. So it's a, it's a big difference in, in groups. Fun. So really, truly no prerequisites needed, but it's, it's applicable for all levels. Yeah. They, I usually say start with like 12 weeks for puppies just because in, they need a little bit of, um, ability to focus, you know, some puppies at eight weeks, it's like a 30 second moment in time. Um, so I usually say 12 weeks to be able to work on this stuff a little bit more, but, um, yeah, you definitely can be a beginner and we can start you off in the beginning and then work you up. And the nice thing is, is you'll go to, you know, get good solid foundations for when you decide, you know, what your goals are, whether you just want to do just for fun or you want to move on to something different. Awesome. So one last question. Um, and it's the question I've been asking. Everybody is their last question for a while lately. So what is something that you have learned or even just kind of been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Just like dogs, if the people you're instructing are in a tough emotional place, as many people are right now, I think it's important to make sure that you're teaching in a way that is kind and understanding, which of course FDSA is, and always takes their emotional state into account. For many of my in-person students, weekly lessons are their time to not think about it. And I'm very grateful that they choose to spend it with me and their dogs. And I think that that's something that we all have to just be very aware of, because usually we're really focused on the dog's emotional state. And I think it's important that we also take a little extra time when dealing with each other to focus on our own emotional states. Super important reminder. Thanks for that. Yep. And thank you for coming on the podcast. You are very welcome, Melissa. I always have a great time talking to you. Thank you so much. Absolutely. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone 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 Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Today's show is brought to you by pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense pense