E209: 에린 라인즈(Erin Lynes) - "줄을 당기는 개와 물에 뛰어드는 개들"

Abby and Fergie, who my husband runs in dog diving and I run in agility and other things. Vipers, sort of my do-everything dog. Are you tired of this list yet? No, you're doing good. Pepper and Vanilla, who are my shed antler hunting dogs and nose work buddies. And Mezzy, who is my primary gross hunting dog. And she's also, I call her my lessons dog because she loves to come and be the demo dog for different types of sports. And then I've got three youngsters as well. So, Venom, Cool Jam and Pounce. And this year, they've been doing dog sledding and they'll probably do a little more dog diving and get into some other dog sports as they get a little older too. So, from 13 down to what's the baby? She's one. She's one. Okay. So, the full range there. Like, this is a bad question, Melissa. You're going to get a whole list. That's right. You're not the only person I've interviewed who's got quite a list. You may be the only person I've interviewed with a list that long who only has one breed, though. Yes, I'm a collector. Labrador. So, obviously, you kind of do all the things. How did you get into dog sports originally? So, I guess my dad used to raise labs. And when I was young, dog sports were basically obedience and field trials. And he would take his dogs into obedience classes. And I would sit as a little girl and watch class. I wasn't allowed to participate. There was, I can't remember what the age limit was. But I was like, oh, I want to be the trainer. I want to do that. And then at some point, he discovered dog sled racing and thought that might be kind of a good way to exercise the labs in the winter. And sort of how dog sport things spiral out of control. The next thing you know, the whole family is involved in dog sled racing. So, I kind of consider dog sledding my first dog sport. And then stuff just goes on from there. Fair enough. So, sitting, watching obedience, and then dog sledding. You know, did you start out kind of in that positive trainer bubble or not? Or, you know, what kind of got you started down that piece of the journey? So, no. I guess everything that I was exposed to at that time was what we would call traditional training corrections and all that kind of stuff. And I didn't get into strictly positive training myself into much more recently. I did have lots of good influences and good trainers in my life before that point. But sometimes, I guess you just need to find your own way. And yeah, that's what happened for me. Fair enough. You know, we kind of talked about the various bits in sports. And you listed your dogs.

You were very good about telling me all the different things that they do. So, it seems like, you know, pulling sports and dog diving are kind of your focus, though, these days. Although, you can certainly tell me if I'm wrong. I'd love to know just what kind of what is it about those sports that keeps you kind of focused there? Yeah. So, right now, definitely with the pandemic, dog diving is something we've been able to continue doing, obviously, in the summer months. So, we had a full season of dog diving last year. And dog sledding is a go kind of no matter what. So, we were really busy with that this winter. So, I definitely had more of a focus on those things. I'd say in normal times, I'm not quite as focused on any one sport. And I sort of train rotationally, depending on what competitions are coming up and what I'm sort of interested in and that sort of thing at that given time. But dog diving and dog sledding are sort of a place where I've been able to find a good niche. And part of what I like about training is figuring things out on my own. Obviously, I like to take lessons and learn stuff that way. But I also, I'm really just intrigued about what will work for my dogs and what won't. And those are places where there hasn't been all that much positive training or, in some cases, any sort of regimented training at all. So, I've been able to tinker at that a little bit and kind of brainstorm and come up with things. And that's sort of what I love about those sports, for sure. Yeah. And it's kind of nice that one's kind of more of a winter sport and one's kind of more of a summer sport, right? Exactly. Yeah. Both Canadian seasons. So, I'd love to dive into those two things a little bit more. I know I've seen some of the videos, which are awesome, by the way, of your labs pulling the sled. Can you just talk a little about the training process there? Kind of what's involved in that? Yeah. Yeah. So, dog sledding is a really, it's kind of a really unique sport in that there's lots of social learning. So, once you have dogs that know how to do it, it's easy to train new dogs. They learn from each other. They learn a lot from watching. They learn a lot from just diving in and getting started. But my current dogs are all sort of recipients of this social learning going back probably till about 2010 when I first started training my current group of labs and had to start them from scratch. So, the training is, I guess, like other sports, small doses and focusing on success. So, for most of the dogs, you spend their whole lives teaching them don't pull on the leash and, you know, walk nicely and stuff.

So, there's a little bit of unlearning that and that it's okay to pull. And once they figure that out, it's very rewarding for them. But yeah, we break it down into small bits when we're starting a new dog. It's okay to pull. You got to focus forward. No, you're not beside me. And giving them that forward focus is really key. So, there's different ways to do that depending on what sort of resources you have available. Sometimes just having another person call the dogs while they're learning to pull. Sometimes chasing someone on a bike or on a snowmobile or something like that is incentive to just depending on what you have to work with. But it's kind of fun because there's usually a very clear light bulb moment where the dog is going, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Oh, I get it. I get to do this. This is so fun and awesome. And then the chasm really takes off. Yeah. Yeah. I love that what you mentioned about social learning. I think that's something that, you know, it's definitely kind of a unique aspect. I mean, I can't think of any other sport where that plays such a big role or would play such a big role. Yeah. It's definitely something that you can see happening. I started my young fella Cool Jam this year and I just, I kind of skipped all the groundwork and I thought, I'll just stick him in the team and see how he does. He's been watching the other dogs do it. And he sort of bounced around a little bit that first run and was looking at, he's like, oh, Kate, she's pulling. She's pulling. What are we doing? And then you could just see, I think I posted that video. Maybe you even saw that one, Melissa, where he just all of a sudden was like, oh, wheels ahead, forward focus. He's got it. And it just felt like a little bit of whiplash. It's just a very rewarding feeling for the human end of the team when that happens, because you can actually feel it happen. And the little joyful faces at the end of the run, it's awesome. It's really addicting, actually. I'd imagine it makes them very happy to use their bodies. Um, I have to kind of ask, though, what about the stop? How do you make sure the dogs actually stop? Especially when you've got, how many do you normally put on the sled at once? I often run four, but you can, like, there's people in conditions where you would run many more dogs than that. So. So even with just four labs, how do you get them all to not run you right in your tree? That's a super question. That's actually a really common question. And the answer is that stopping is not the dog's responsibility. For the most part, that's on the musher. So the dog sled itself has a braking system on it.

And it has an anchor that we call a snow hook. So if you have to stop and keep the dog team stopped, you put this anchor into the snow and it holds everybody from being able to move forward. Um, but they do start to pair keywords with stopping eventually. I don't think that it's super realistic for dogs who are trained to run full speed and pull really hard to stop on their own. There's, there's probably a couple of teams out there in the world that can do it and will be listening and saying, you just got to train your dogs better. Um, but I, to be honest, it's not, it's not really something I consider a priority in my training because I can stop them. Um, I tell them, whoa, I apply the brake. They feel that and they, they decrease their pulling power, um, until we're stopped. Um, they'd rather be running and they'd rather keep going. So it's not, um, it's not easy to reinforce stopping. Um, but yeah, it is, that's, I consider that part my job. So they don't get to be in charge of. Fair enough. Probably, uh, very smart. Um, cause as you mentioned, I'm sure they would rather keep going. Um, so now that things are starting to warm up again, I imagine you're working on that transition out of, I don't know, you're in Canada. Maybe it's not warming up enough there yet. To duck diving stuff. Um, I'd love to just know kind of what your duck diving training looks like, especially this time of year. Yeah. So we are starting to convert over. Um, it's a little too slushy and mushy and icy now with the melting happening to keep on with the dog sledding. There's, um, uh, the, the winds of change are in the air. So what we're doing this time of year is lots of groundwork for duck diving, dry land stuff indoors. Mostly, um, if there's a really good day when the snow conditions and there's not mud around and stuff, we can do a little bit outside, but I like to work on grippy surfaces. So we're usually inside, um, working on specific skills and, um, breaking things down so that when we do get to the pool, I finally have pool season roll around by like early June. We've got, uh, the skill part mostly covered and we can start putting it together at the pool. So yeah, that's this time of year. We're really working on that. Dry land skills. Um, can you go into that a little more? I mean, I think a lot of people think of duck diving as either something the dog is just good at, um, or they're not good at it. Right. So how much of that is, is skills that you train versus like the dog's kind of innate ability or talent? That's a super question.

So there are definitely dogs that just show up at the pool and will jump in and are amazing without any training. And they might just continue to be amazing forever. But I think a lot more dogs get to enjoy the sport and do well at it when they have training. I guess that probably is like any other sport. There's some dogs that are like gifted and natural. Um, I think the, the sort of the culture and dock diving has been very, very welcoming to newcomers. And oftentimes that means, um, they can even show up right at events and try it for the first time during a competition, which isn't like many other dog sports. And in that way, it's, it's nice because people get a chance to try it and feel the excitement of event. But on the other hand, it also means a lot of dogs who don't immediately take to dock diving probably don't get a second chance because they are seeing dogs who are more experienced, more trained and comparing that to their dog. Who's like, ah, what do you mean jump in the pool? So for the average dog, they do better at dock diving and have a better chance of liking it. If they have some training, perhaps what they eventually can do as far as potential in the sport, um, reaching personal bests and how, how good those are going to be. There's, there's certainly a genetic influence on that natural ability, how they're built, their sort of natural level of intensity and that sort of thing. Um, but there's a, there's a whole pile of things that we can influence with training and for my young dogs. And the longer that I'm in the sport, the more I'm trying to really stack the bank on the training end of things before I test out the natural abilities, if that makes sense. Yeah, that totally makes sense. So can, can you talk a little more about those pieces that training can help with? Like what is it that the training actually pulls out and improves? Yeah, that's, that's, I can definitely talk about that. So, um, confidence and body awareness are big things like kind of general concept things. So when we're asking our dogs to eventually run 40 feet down a dock and jump on a, you know, we want them to jump fairly close to the edge so they're not wasting space. And then we're doing these big, powerful jumps and hoping for all that. We really want them to know where their bodies are, um, how to control those rear feet, get those big push-offs and, and feel good about it and do that again and again, again, without having any bad experiences. So slipping and falling off the edge of the dock because they miscalculated and stuff, all that kind of stuff we want to avoid.

So the dryland training that we do focuses quite a bit on breaking down what happens at the end of the dock, teaching them where to put their feet, how to, how to know where their feet are so that when they get to the dock and they jump off, it's not like, Oh, my feet were, I thought they were somewhere else. I'm so surprised. That kind of thing. Uh, we work on their ability to track and catch a bumper or their, whatever toy they're being tossed so that they have that ability. They've kind of got that coordination with their body as well. And they've got the, um, the, the interest in doing that, building up that, um, one of the things I really started focusing on lately are sort of toy play skills and how I can teach my dogs to, it probably sounds really basic because obviously dogs who do dock diving generally love toys and love retrieving. But if they can spit out toys, switch toys, um, retrieve a specific one and come back and tug with a different one, all those kinds of things are, are really helpful for dock diving, not only just because of the, the skill element and how it allows us to reward them out of the water. Um, but it also helps kind of keep their arousal levels in check. So if you can practice those sorts of things on dry land and they, they're not angry when you take their toy away or upset by it, or, you know, trying to avoid that part of it, you're going to have, um, a lot less wasted energy on the dock, chasing your dog around fighting to get the toy back. And that's energy they can put into their next jump. So I like, uh, to focus on that sort of thing. And then, um, some of the specific games that we play in dock diving involve having the dog catch a toy that's dangling out all over the water, or that's already suspended at the end of the dock. And they, uh, those games specifically really have a lot of skills that can, can be enhanced with dry land training. So we can teach them to look for the toy on cue. Do you know if it's at the end of the dock? Do you know if it's hanging up? Um, yes, you're going to retrieve that one and no, not the one in my pocket, that sort of thing. There's, uh, there's all kinds of cool stuff. And the, the more I do it, the more I think of, oh, I could split that out and train that separately. So right now I'm really obsessing about how I can train the dogs to turn more tightly in the water when they grab their toy, um, get them to swim back to the dock faster for the speed games and that sort of thing too. Fun. Sounds like good stuff. Yeah. You mentioned this where it's pretty welcoming to newcomers.

So do you have any tips for beginners folks that maybe haven't even tried it yet? They're looking to get started. Yeah. So the, the very first thing is you want your dog to already be comfortable swimming and, um, really, really happy and eager about swimming before you try dock diving. So I, I think that is probably pretty common knowledge, but it's actually surprisingly uncommon in some ways too, because we do get some people that come, um, for their first lesson and their dog has been waiting. Maybe they like to lay in puddles. They like, you know, the feeling of cool water, but they've never actually swam. So that's part one is getting a really confident swimmer and then working on your dog's interest in toys. So on the flip side, there's the dogs that love swimming and paddling around in water, but that can't really be the primary motivation. They do need to want to retrieve a toy. So any work you do towards toy skills, retrieving skills is a huge payoff. So those, those are some of the things that I would suggest working on. Awesome. Um, you're working on a class for this stuff for FDSA for this coming term. Do you want to just share a little bit about the class, kind of what's your cover and maybe what kind of dog is a good fit for the specific class? Yeah. So I'm super excited about this class. Um, there's going to be a couple of different tracks of focus. So I'm hoping that I can share the joy of dry lawn training with dogs of all levels that we can get some new people who have, or maybe new dogs and not so much new people. It could go either way that are able to start their dogs off right with some, some, uh, foundation training first, but there's also going to be some focus on more advanced skills that advanced dogs can work on. And we're going to be looking at a few specific fitness exercises that will boost the power of the dog so that they can get bigger, bigger, faster jumps. Did I answer all your questions there? Yes. So, you know, any skill level, any experience, I guess, is that the right thing? Are there any age limitations? Any, you know, should be a certain age or anything like that? So there's nothing in the course that is unsafe or inappropriate, not appropriate. And there's not, there's nothing as like a lower age limit that way. It will help if your puppy already, if you're, you know, if you're wanting to take the course with a puppy, if they already have a basic interest in toys and retrieving and sort of have the gist of, of a marker-based training system. Um, but there's not a whole lot of super prerequisites as we start everything, um, fairly much at

the foundation level and the dogs that are already more advanced will progress more quickly through it. And the dogs that are newer will get to spend more time building each of those foundation skills. So I think that it's, my hope is that it will be pretty universal for anybody who's interested in dog diving and hasn't done, um, a whole pile of dryland training before that they'll be able to get some good nuggets out of it and, and know where to go with their training. Awesome. And it's the right time of year for sure. Just kind of gearing up for the season. I have three questions I usually ask people the first time they're on at the end of the interview. So I want to kind of go through those. Um, the first one is what is the dog related accomplishment that you're proudest of? That is a super question. I knew this question was coming and I, and I gave it a bunch of thought and there's all kinds of things. I'm just really proud of my dogs in general. So that's a bit of a tricky one, but I guess, um, accomplishment wise, I am really proud of my dog Shelby who came back from her, her shoulder injury and, um, some experimental treatments and actually was able to, uh, win in her first competition back the Canadian championship dog diving event. And because just the way the timing of the rehab and everything works, she only got about a week of pool time before the event. So we had to be pretty strategic in how she finished her rehab exercises and, and kind of easing back into it. And even how we ran the competition itself. But that that's sort of a highlight for me is that, um, she was able to do that and that she's been able to continue on and be a sound, healthy dog. This was several years ago now, and she's, she's still doing well. So I, I kind of love that one. That's awesome. Uh, what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Oh goodness. There's so many good nuggets. There's, um, sometimes when I'm like in a, a bit of a training rut, I just hear this one thing and it's so simple and it really resonates with me right in that moment. And I was, I almost had like a whole list of things for you on that one, but what I settled on is my best piece of training advice. Um, it's kind of a more, maybe more of a philosophy type thing where they say that beginner trainers like to train intermediate stuff and intermediate trainers like to train advanced stuff and advanced trainers train foundation stuff. And I'm kind of feeling that one right now, um, as I'm diving into all the, the bits and pieces for my course and, and trying to make it, um, really a solid course for foundation

skills so that it's applicable to the new dogs and to the advanced people who like to work on that stuff. So yeah, that's, that's my one for today. Awesome. I like it. Uh, and then finally, who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? I have many idols, Melissa. So, um, there's a whole pile of FENSI instructors that I, I sort of rabidly follow Amy Cook, Sarah Stremming, Sarah Bruschi, Megan Foster, obviously I absorb everything that Denise puts out. Um, what, uh, someone that perhaps the FENSI crowd is less familiar with is Jennifer Hennion. And she's, she's my role model right now as somebody who is pioneering some cool and interesting, positive reward based retriever training stuff. So I've been watching what she's doing and how she's breaking new trails and in that sport and building things from the ground up. So yeah, that's Jennifer's my gal. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Erin. Thanks so much for having me. This was fun. It was fun. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We will be back next week with Heather, Chrissy, and Nicole to talk about life skills for sports dogs. Don't miss it. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice, have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the FENSI Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise FENSI for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by benton.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Flying. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music.