E43: 안드레아 해리슨(Andrea Harrison) - "새해 목표 설정"

but I mean power of ourselves, power of understanding that we are good enough and strong enough and competent enough. So many of us in dog training land look to someone else and admire them and wish we were them and perhaps have a little envy or jealousy. And the goal setting that we do can, can give us the strength to do our own thing, right? To manage our own expectations, to create training plans, to create competitive goals, to do all of those kinds of things. So when I talk to people about goal setting, I try to remember to focus on goals. And I focus is one of my little silly acronyms I like to use. So the F stands for facing the present. You never want to dwell in the past and you never want to just dream of the future. And goals give you an opportunity to really focus on and face the present moment because you look at where you are right now and determine what your goals will be. They let you offer a vision. So you decide, are your goals going to be around structure and plans or are your goals going to be around skills and those sorts of things? So they give you that vision through offering it to you. The C I think of as being for clarity, right? Goals will bring you clarity around what you want to do. So if you want to train your dog to do draft titles and you get yourself sucked into doing obedience fronts, that's not going to be that helpful to you. So if you have good goals, you'll find that it's easier to find clarity around what to do and those steps to build. I use the you for understanding the choices and priorities that you make. So say you're looking at what class to take next term at FENSE as an example, right? We all know it's hard to pick. There are so many great choices and we get ourselves spun. If you've taken the time and done some goal setting, you can actually see which of the classes will help you move forward with your goals or which of the classes that you need. So to be able to understand the choices and set your own priorities can be really important too and really beneficial. And then, of course, when you achieve your goals, you get both success and satisfaction from them. And, you know, people laugh at me when I say one of the good reasons to goal set is to reach success and satisfaction. But it's so important. So many people sort of don't internalize their own worth. And if goals give you a way to internalize your worth and feel better about yourself, that's a really good thing. So, you know, I think goal setting is a really important skill to develop. And I think that it can add a lot to us as multidimensional positive dog trainers.

So to kind of reiterate that acronym one more time. So F is facing present. Is that right? Facing the present. Yeah. Facing the present. Oh, offering vision. Offering vision. See clarity. See clarity. Yep. Use understanding. And then S is success and satisfaction. Exactly. Excellent. That's great. I think that's really helpful for people to have that kind of to keep in mind as they kind of go through that process, right? Well, exactly. Right. And that's the thing. It just gives you a way to break it down to remember it because you're like, oh, goal setting. It's too much work. And you have to think too hard. And, you know, you wake up in the morning and drive to work and you start thinking about a goal and then the phone rings or whatever and you get distracted. Why would you go back to it? Well, focus, right? Remember focus and focus on those goals. Right. Right. People probably set goals that require their dogs to learn new skills when it comes to dog training or to achieve really specific things like in their first arch or, you know, what have you. But since we're relying on another being, our dogs, what special considerations should we be keeping in mind as we set those goals? Such an important question. And I think the thing I really want all of my students and I hope all of the FDSA students and everybody listening to remember is that the dogs don't get a say in the goals we set for them. Right. So my little Chihuahua, Thea, I wanted her to do agility. She's a Chihuahua. She weighs six pounds. Agility was not really her thing. She was she's quick. She's a character. She bombs around the field. But every different teeter I put her on dropped at a different rate of speed, even though they're not supposed to. And she had a couple of quite scary fly offs. So what I did was I started running her in classes that didn't have a teeter. My goal maybe was to do, you know, some more advanced agility titles with her. And but my real goal was to enjoy agility with her. And she did very, very well as long as she wasn't getting on strange teeters. Strange teeters were scary for her and they were dangerous. And because I didn't let my own personal goals superserved her need to be safe. Right. It allowed us to both enjoy a sport I really love. So you've got to remember the dog didn't get a say in your goal. So if you would run if you were sore and achy, but your dog is sore and achy, it might not be a good day to run because your dog doesn't have the same goals as you. Right. And when you look at that, you alluded to it earlier, too. You know, this concept I talk about all the time, but the difference between a process goal

and an outcome goal, the outcome goal is getting the arch. It's getting the ribbon. It's going to nationals. It's coming first at nationals or on the podium or whatever. It's those big sort of ribbon goals. That's what I think of when I talk about outcome goals and process goals are all the little steps that get you there. So a process goal might be training at least three times a week or teaching my dog to find three different scents or, you know, all of this sort of step building goals. So when you're thinking about dog training, make sure that you're remembering to build more process goals than outcome goals. I'm not opposed to outcome goals, but the process goals will help you and your dog reach the outcome goal anyhow. And they're a little bit fairer for your dog, given that your dog doesn't have a say in the goal setting. So the weekend warriors who say, oh, you know, I'm going to a trial on Sunday and I'm going to start training Friday night and train like mad Friday and Saturday. Right. They're not doing themselves nor their dogs any favors by that kind of goal setting. A systemic method of goal setting that includes process goals as an actually defined piece of the process are going to get you much, much further than just ping ponging around from outcome goal to outcome goal and getting frustrated when you and your dog aren't achieving them the way you want. You know, you kind of mentioned outcome and process goals. You got in a little bit to what my next question is, which is how can people be smart about the goals they set for themselves and their dogs? Is there kind of more you want to get into there? Well, yeah, because I think, you know, you want to remember that process goals allow you to learn right through the mistakes that you make, through the opportunities that you get through process, through watching what happens that lets you really learn the most from the goal setting process. Outcome goals are around performance and they're great and they're important, too. But outcome goals really are an opportunity to perform and show what you know. So when you're thinking about sort of smart training, it's about picking the model of goal setting that's going to work best for you. I'm always happy to share like there are hundreds of different kinds of goal setting models, but a really easy one is the smart goal setting, right? You hear about it all the time. And that's another acronym that's been around forever. And there are some issues with it. But for people who haven't ever goal set before, it can be a good place to start.

And it looks at having specific goals that are measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. And those are each of the smart, right? S-M-A-R-T. And so a specific goal would be, I want Dora to do a dog walk. Okay. Measurable, can she do a dog walk when I'm standing behind it, beside it or recalling her over it to me? Is that achievable for her? Yeah, she's very confident on all kinds of shaky surfaces. So she's absolutely fine with that. Is it relevant? Well, I like agility. So yeah, for me it is. Is it timely? Yeah, she's a mature little dog. She's still young enough to be fit. You know, all of those kinds of things. So smart goals can give you a nice framework. It can be an intelligent way to look at goal setting. You want to make sure that you're making your goals positive, right? That you can choose to be positive about your goals and make them changing and affirming as opposed to negative in things that you're likely to fail at. So some people will set a goal of, I don't want my dog to bark at strangers. And it sounds like it's a good goal. I don't want my dog to bark at strangers. A better goal for many of the goal setting experts would be to frame it around, I want my dog to walk quietly beside me down the street, right? So you can take that negative goal and turn it into a positive goal. So that's one thing to keep in mind when you're trying to be intelligent about how you goal set. Also think about making intrinsic goals. When we get into goal setting, we often set our goals for someone else. So we might think, oh, the breeder would love it if I had a versatility title on this dog. Or my husband says, I'm spending so much money on dog training, I really should bring home some ribbons to show for it. Or whatever, right? We extrinsically tend to set our goals. And you want to, and that's why I like process goals too, because they remind us to remember to be internal. Set our goals in an intrinsic sense. You need to goal set for yourself. Not wholly, you know, balance is okay. But make sure that you've got that balance that you're remembering that you matter in the goal setting regime that you're setting up to. So for those out there keeping notes, it's smart, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Was that it? Correct. Yeah. All right. I'm taking notes as we go through so that I can remember some of the acronyms. You're good. Yeah. The acronyms, well, I don't know. Not everybody does them, right? Myself, Al Bryant, it may or may not work for you, and that's fine. But I'm finding more and more people, the acronyms actually help them hang on to stuff.

So I'm trying to, that one I did not come up with, but I'm trying to create other ones around some of the work that I do to try to help people out figuring that stuff out. Yeah. I mean, it helps it kind of stick in your head when you can remember a single word and then you go, oh, wait, I'm missing something. What was the M again? Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew that they say something like 80% of New Year's resolutions tend to fail by February. So I wanted to kind of address that a little bit. How can people who set a goal for themselves, a good goal for themselves, kind of following the guidelines you've laid out, how can they stay motivated, you know, past February, hopefully all the way through the year? So a few things, and we're lucky with our FDSA community, right? Because we've got a natural accountability system partnership, right? If you're working on your team titles, you've got the team group. If you're working in a class and working through your bronze, you can post in your lurker group. I mean, there are lots of opportunities for that. And that's a really important thing. People need to remember to do that. But one of the things is to take your time and plan your goal. So here we are sitting on December 26th, whatever, and this will come out at the end of the week. So with hardly any time before New Year's, right, to do our goal. And people will be like, oh, my God, I didn't goal set yet. I want a goal set. And they'll jump into it. And don't. Stop. Take your time. Reflect about what matters to you. Talk to an instructor you like or a training buddy already and figure out what realistic goals are. If we set unrealistic goals, we will fail. We're setting ourselves up to fail when we do that. So you're much better to invest the front end time into making your goals realistic and appropriate for you and attainable for you in the moment. And we can talk more about that. But make sure that you've got a way to plan those goals that are sensible for you. Then make sure that you've got a system to record keep so you know if you're meeting those goals or not or where you've got some holes. OK. The accountability piece. I suggest people take the occasional gold class just to build in or silver to build in a little bit higher degree of accountability. If they haven't tried it yet, it can be a really good thing. An in-person class if you're in an area where that's possible. Something to look forward to. For me, I like going to clinics and seminars sometimes just to remind myself that, you know, it reminds me to train to make sure I'm ready for it. And I think that can be a helpful thing.

Identify and accept your flaws when you're thinking about motivation. Not all of us are equally good at things. If your February is going to be crazy and you get derailed a little bit, that's OK. Right. You don't need to be perfect every day all the time. And if your flaw is that you train in short, intense bursts, make sure your goal reflects that you're better off training intensely six days and then taking four days off or whatever it is. Right. So so know who you are. Spend a little bit of time identifying who you are as well. OK. And then, of course, with motivation, you always want to know which of direction, intensity and persistence are your downfall. So direction is you're developing the plan. Intensity is how often you'll do it. And persistence is how long you'll stick with it. And if you know which of those three things is your biggest issue in motivation, it can help you figure out how to overcome that. Even sometimes just knowing that that's your hole, you can be like, oh, I just can't get off the couch tonight. Oh, oh, wait, my direction's failing me. And I set those goals on purpose. Let me get up and go to it. Or, oh, I trained three days last week. I'm not going to train this week at all. Wait a minute. That's persistence. I need to get back up and get back to it. Right. So so often just by understanding ourselves, we set ourselves up to be more successful in this particular regard anyways. So you mentioned setting goals that are kind of attainable for you in the moment. Do you want to go into that just a little bit more since it came up? Sure. Sure. So attainable for you. So what I'm saying is if you want, you'd said your arch. And that's a huge deal in obedience. I hadn't realized till I started working with somebody who's well on her way to it. And she wanted her arch. And she she and I spent quite a long time figuring out what a realistic timeline was for it, because so much of that is out of your direct control. So you can't say you will get that in six shows because it depends on who else is in your show or 20 shows or whatever it is from where you start. Right. So you have to make sure that you build in a little bit of what I would call a buffer. So if you think it would take you 20 trials to get it from where you are right now, I would say you give yourself 30 shots at it. If you get there faster than you thought, that's OK. It's good. Right. No problem. You can always adjust a goal. Goals are highly adjustable. They're designed to be adjustable. So if you if you're reaching it already, that's great.

But if you had said to yourself, you're going to get your arch in 15 and you needed every one of those 15 trials to be completely successful and win the class and all that stuff, then you're going to really be disappointed when you get to trial 14 and you realize you actually still need 13 trials. Right. You're going to feel like a huge failure. So you want to make sure that when you're setting attainable goals and that's one of the reasons I said talk to your instructors and your friends, because sometimes we get rosy colored glasses. Right. We're like, oh, I can do this. I can do this. This is great. And then somebody will say, you know, three months isn't a lot of time when you live in a place where, well, for me, there's major snow. You might get snowed in and not be able to get to a trial. Oh, yeah. And thought of that. So, yeah, you have to just try to think of the whole picture. And the more people you can draw into helping you with that, the easier it's going to be for you in the long run. So the other thing you kind of mentioned, there was record keeping. And I know that's kind of a topic that comes up over and over again in the alumni group, kind of that whole tracking your training process or your training progress and how to do it and, you know, kind of the advantages of it. And people share their whiteboards or their bullet journals or all sorts of stuff. So I wanted to ask kind of what recommendations you have for people interested in tracking their progress or coming up with a system. You know, I love this question because, you know, it goes right to the heart of me because my answer is it depends. And it depends on what works for you. Right. So you can set up a really, really simple system that is literally putting a plus, a minus, a plus. It went really well, a minus. It wasn't such a great day or a big fat zero with the line through it. But you didn't train at all that day. You can do that on the calendar on the wall in your kitchen. And that is record keeping. That's legitimate record keeping. You can say to yourself, I'm going to video every session I do on Friday nights. And whenever you remember to train on a Friday night, you video it. That's record keeping. OK, those are legitimate forms of record keeping. And they might be what you want to do. That's simple, simple, simple. And it's fine. OK, you might want to do something a little more sort of medium where you've got a blog going or you've started a tiny little Facebook group with you and two of your friends and you share your successes. Or you write on the backs of agility maps how the run went when you show.

And I had a book full of maps. I still use them. I still set up training based on my book of maps. And I love them. I remember most of my courses that way. You know, there are so many sort of medium. You might videotape twice a week or every time you teach something new or, you know, lots of those kinds of things. And then there are really complex systems. Like you mentioned bullet journaling. Bullet journaling is hot, hot, hot. People love it. It's great. It's pretty. Lots of people really disappoint themselves because they set up these beautiful bullet journals and then they don't keep them. You know, they're colorful. They're great. If it works for you and you love it, great. If you set it up your own way, set it up your own way. You know, you don't have to do it the way anybody else tells you to. It's for you. It's tracking what you want to track. So people get confused, like, should I have my grocery lists and my dog training? It's up to you. If you want to have your grocery lists and your dog training in the same journal, go for it. If you want to have every dog having their own separate folder, go for it, right? If it doesn't work for you, you won't use it. So with record keeping almost more than anything else I teach, it has to work for you. So start simply successfully and build from there. People and I, the last chat I saw, they weren't sharing them, but people share the most beautiful Excel programs that they've set up with the exercises and the dogs and the colors. And I mean, we've got some really, really talented people in our group who are happy to share stuff. So I love seeing that conversation come up and I sit back now because people know, like, I've got folders and folders of bookmarks and stuff, but people are all doing all kinds of different things. And if it works for you, great. If it isn't working for you, don't beat yourself up. Stop. Think. Try something else, right? There's no failure in not setting up a record keeping system that works for you the first time you try it or the second time or the 50th time. You know, keep going. My record keeping has changed so much over the last 15 years of dog training. And I can't even tell you all the different systems I've used because at different times in my life, it's busier and less busy, right? So, you know, I work and I do it and it's great. But it has to work for you in that moment. So you touched on this a little bit in there, but I know for a lot of people, kind of the hardest part of all of that, right?

Like achieving a goal, tracking it, anything is when something happens and they miss a day or life intervenes and maybe they miss a few days. So I wanted to address that too. How can people recover if they do fall off the bandwagon or if they wake up one morning and realize they have gotten kind of off track and haven't been kind of working on their goal the way that originally envisioned? Yeah. And it's such an important thing. I mean, life happens to us all, right? No matter how good your goals are, no matter how clear your vision is, life happens. I had a relative diagnosed with cancer, got a call at a trial, left the trial, didn't do competitive agility for four months. That was just my reality, right? And I beat myself up about it. This is a long time ago. I beat myself up about it and was really upset and mad at the money and the training and all of that. At the end of the day, it didn't matter. I went back to agility, loved it, hit my podium finishes, you know, and did just fine. So you have to accept that those sort of throwaway days will happen and sometimes it's a throwaway week or a throwaway month. We do this for fun. The dog sports are about fun. And if we're in a place where it isn't fun, we need to stop and regroup and rethink and plan it out. Imperfect action, though, is better than no action. So if you're finding that you're stalling out just because you've had a few bad days and you don't know how to get going again, grab a toy and go play. Grab a clicker and teach something. Watch a shaping video and try it yourself, right? Like do something. I would rather see someone take imperfect action than just be stalled, right? If there is a place for that. If there isn't a place for you mentally, that's okay, too. But it's a separate issue, right? There are sort of two reasons life happens to us. One is we can't overcome it and one is just we get so down on ourselves we can't. And when you're that down on yourself, you, you know, remind yourself of why you're doing it. Put a picture of a ribbon. Hang a ribbon on your bathroom door so you'll see the ribbon and be like, oh, yeah, I want to do that. Put Denise's book right front and center and think about telling her, you know, that what you're actually achieving that day. Jump on the FDSA thing and say, hey, I'm feeling down. And I guarantee you 50 people are going to say, hey, it's okay. I've been there, too. We've all been there. It's okay. Get out there. Get training. Have fun with your dog. Use those days to reclaim. I talked a little bit earlier about power, right? Goals giving us power.

And those days actually give you a funny sort of backwards opportunity to reclaim that power because you're busy feeling down about yourself. And if you can get yourself to train just for five minutes, I'm not saying some great complex training plan that catches up on all the process goals that you missed last week. I'm saying spend five minutes doing something with your dog. That gives you that little bit of power back. And then you can go on and do a little bit of power again. So you can build, right? Take one tiny, tiny, small, imperfect step forward when it's not working very well. And then you will find that you will be able to make sense of it. If your training is getting derailed, though, and that's why you have stopped, that's okay. And that's important to stop and redress. You want to look at your goals and make sure they are, in fact, realistic and measurable and achievable for you in that time and relevant to what you want to do. And you might need to regroup and change your goals a bit. Sometimes when we get stalled out, it's because the goals we're working on aren't really the goals we should be working on. So remember that. Nothing could be a good choice in that situation. So you've gotten really mad at your dog the night before and you've done something you aren't proud of and you might need to stop and regroup and reassess where your goals are. And that's okay, too. Again, you're a human being. We're all human beings. We're not perfect. So you said something in there that I kind of love. And it's just that idea that we do this to have fun with our dogs. Ultimately, if that's not happening, something's wrong and it's worth taking some time off or rethinking those goals or looking at things again. I just think that's really important for people to hear and to recognize. Yeah, it's so important. You know, to me, it's the heart of why I do what I do, right? Like my dogs are the good thing in my life. And I know that's true for many of us. So I'm glad it resonated with you. Despite our best efforts, sometimes we just don't achieve our goals. It just doesn't happen. So do you have any tips for when that happens? Handling it, handling the disappointment and kind of those feelings of having failed or a failure? Of course I do. That's what I'm asking you, right? This is my bread and butter, man. This is what I do. And I can hear half of my students laughing, going, oh, I know what she's going to say. I've got some new stuff for some of you coming up, I promise. But I want you to, when that happens to you, I want you to really stop and think, is this goal too much for you right now?

And if it is too much for you, that's okay. I often teach people to frame their goals around at least. So instead of saying, I'm going to train five times a week, I would much rather someone say, I'm going to train at least four times a week. So you set your goal for what you think it is, and then you back up a step. And then if you find you're only training three times a week, you say, I'm going to actually train twice, at least twice a week. So as soon as you start to feel that sense of disappointment and failure, reword your goal, rework your goal a little bit and reword it and give yourself a bit of a break. Okay? I've already talked to we are humans. You need to balance that fun and the work piece. You want to make sure that fun and work are in good balance. In my blog, you'll see I strike out training and work years and years ago. Started striking out and I put play because really that's what I do. I play with my dogs and we get some training done and we have lots of fun doing it. And that's been a very basic philosophy of mine for a long, long time. So that balance is super important. Use a growth mindset. We can have these fixed mindsets where we think this thing is going to be the way it is forever. And our brains are really very changing. They've got great plasticity. They're very accommodating. So remember that. And remember, you know, not yet does not mean never. And I love that we use not yet in the team stuff because it's so true in all of life. If you didn't get that cue that you wanted, it doesn't mean you're never going to get that cue. It means you didn't get that cue right then. Not yet. Okay? So not yet is not never. Mistakes are learning. I say it all the time and I feel like it's so trite when I say it, but it's so true. You know, look for the learning in the mistake that you make and embrace it. You aren't going to get the opportunity to learn that any other way other than through the mistake you made. You know, if it's an error of enthusiasm, as I like to call them, that's great. Celebrate it. If it's an other kind of error, if you over-trained your dog and they're tired at the trial or you sat up beside the wrong dog and your dog snarked at them and you were asked to leave the show, which is terrible, but it happens. You know, then you know, okay, I need to be more careful about where I sat up the next time. Like, no matter how big and bad and awful it feels in that moment, you know, Andrea's rule of five, right? Kick it in. Is it going to matter in five minutes, five hours, five days, five years?

You know, at what point is this thing not going to have such a devastating impact on you? You know, we take things so very, very personally sometimes and ultimately it really isn't personal. Most of what happens around us is not personal to us. Even our own failures in some way are just circumstances happening to us, right? Bad things happen to good people and, you know, if it's a bad thing, I'm sorry and I'll be commiserating, but I'm not going to say to you this is the end of the world because in all likelihood it probably isn't. Right. The other piece of goal setting that we haven't touched on is kind of the pressure that sometimes comes with trying to achieve big goals, right? So someone's feeling stressed out about what they want to achieve. How can they kind of manage that in a way that's healthy and not destructive or beating up on themselves? Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's so important to access your toolbox, right? Most of my classes talk about a toolbox and these few things I'm thinking of as we chat are things that try them out, test them, see if they work for you. And if they work, put them in the top floor of your toolbox so you can use them when you feel stressed and pressure. Of course, I've talked about breathing before, I think, and there are two easy breathing techniques. I am where you breathe in, you think I am. And as you breathe out, you think the good thought. So I am a good dog trainer. I am confident. I am successful. Whatever any of those are, those things are, thought that I am breathing is very useful. Count breathing can also really calm your nerves because it makes you focus. It's a mindfulness practice. So you breathe in for a count of four and you breathe out for a count of five. So it goes in, two, three, four, out, six, seven, eight, nine. And if you can't breathe for that long, you can do it shorter. Breathe in one count less than you breathe out. So you could breathe in, two, three, out, five, six, seven. Okay. And that can really calm you down quite quickly and give you a thing. Write out what you're worried about. Write it out and then tear it up into tiny little strips of paper or burn it. Gives you great satisfaction sometimes if it's safe. You know, if you're frustrated or you're angry about something, that can be a very helpful tool. Write it down. Throw a dance party for yourself. You know, you're mad, you're grumpy, you're unhappy, you're sad, whatever. Crank up a tune that you love and bop around the house. Your dog will think you're nuts. Your spouse might think you're nuts. But, you know, get your frustration out. Shake it off.

A grounding thing people can try when you're really like you're absolutely shaking, you're so upset. Think about how your feet are touching the ground. Really feel your feet. And in fact, you can teach yourself to use that as an anchoring thing when you're standing still and you can't get away. For most of us, movement is a release just like with our dogs. So if you can move, it's going to actually help more. You can shake your hands or push your arms together or any one of those things. But if you can't do any of that and you have to just stand there, really concentrate on how your toes are touching in your shoes and your shoes are pressing into the floor and feel that root to the ground. That can be a really nice tool. Talk briefly about my rule of five already. You can strike a pose. Very Ann Cuddy of Power Person was had lots of fun talking about, you know, striking Wonder Woman poses and various poses and mirrors and stuff. Go sneak into a bathroom, strike a power pose and then away you go. Right. So that can just root you and reground you a little bit. Another one I like is something I call traffic light. So you're getting tense and fried and upset. Think about a traffic light. Red, stop. Amber, think about it and make a plan. Green, try your plan. So it's a very quick way to just go traffic light. And you can actually run through it in like 10 seconds sometimes from red to green. And then reset yourself. So it's just a way to reset. And then, of course, reframing whatever is going on can be really helpful, too. And you're feeling really stressed out. I'm feeling stressed, but I'm remembering to do my breathing exercise. I'm feeling stressed, but Andrea would tell me I'm learning from this. Somebody messaged me. I laughed and said, well, did it work? They were like, yes, it did. So, you know, however you can reframe it. I didn't have a really good show, but I got out of house cleaning today, right? Like whatever it is that'll work for you, go ahead and steal it and use it. You know, reframing can be a very, very useful tool. But the thing about all of these tools, Melissa, I wouldn't want anyone to forget is they all take practice. So you can't just grab one on the fly and go, oh, yeah, yeah, I like that feel your feet thing and try to do it only when you're stressed. If it's something that you think might work for you, start trying it now, right? Like any of my tools. And I've got hundreds. Like I just picked out a few and I picked out some ones that I haven't shared in classes very often, if at all. But just to do something a little bit different.

But if you don't practice them, they will not work for you in a stressful situation. Similar to kind of Amy's concept for her management class for managing dogs, you have to practice with the dog so that it becomes second nature before you actually need it in the moment. Same idea. Works in us too. Exactly. Exactly. We're all mammals, man. Yep. So I know you touch on a lot of these topics in your Handle This Class, which is on the calendar for February. And I wanted to just ask you to share a little bit about the class and kind of tell students what's in it, tell students, you know, what might make them want to take it, that kind of thing. Well, good question. You know, it's a funny class. When I first developed it, I thought it would be one of the very most popular classes. And it's one of the most intense classes that I teach. And I teach lots of intense classes. People think hard in my classes. And I always apologize. I'm sorry you're thinking. And they're always like, no, no, it's good. It's good. I'm like, but I didn't mean to make you think that hard. But one of the things we get into is sort of creating a master plan. So whenever it is that you've gotten that you want to figure out how to handle, lots of people come because they're still really nervous in the ring, right? It was set up to be sort of a follow up course to all in your head, but you don't have to have done all in your head anymore to do it. I've figured out how to work through without having to have it. But so lots of people who are nervous come into it or lots of people who are struggling with trial situations. But there are also now lots of people who are just trying to figure out how to get to a show. So they don't even know if they're going to be nervous or not yet because they haven't gone to a show yet. It's become, as well as the nerves piece, it's become setting up a master plan. Like, how are you going to get from where you are to where you want to be applying all of the different things that have come up in Denise's class and Hannah's class and all the different classes that you've taken? How are you going to marry them all together into a vision of success for you? You know, there's a lot about change and being realistic and adapting to change and dealing with stressors that come up in your life. But if I was going to sort of give you the one thing, I think it's that ability to create a master plan to bring in lots of different elements. And it's kind of cool because my classes, people come to them from lots of different sports, right?

I have, you know, a burn hunt person, a scent work person, an obedience person, an agility person, a drafting person. You know, I usually get lots and lots of variety in the classes that I have. And some people do lots of things. Dock diving people have shown up in my classes. So you get to see how all these different sports create these master plans. And sometimes we're able to use ideas from different threads that you can carry over to your sport. So I really like that about my classes. I think it's quite a cool way to do it. And then the other class I'm running this semester is Unleash Personal Potential, which is the gold only class, which is basically whatever people want to do works. The lectures are just around mindfulness, but people do exactly what they want. So you might have somebody trying to peak for performance in March, or somebody who wants to know how to help their boyfriend like their dogs better, or somebody who wants to get a job in a dog-related field. Lots and lots of different things have come up in the class, and it's a lot of fun too. It's gold only, and you have to have taken some class from me at some level. To get into it. All right. So I have one final question for you, Andrea. So I wanted to ask you if you had any dog-related resolutions or goals that you're planning on trying to achieve in the next year, at least any that you care to share. Yeah, yeah. Good, great question. I always have goals, and I don't think I've blogged about it yet this year. If you look at December in my blog, you can see my goals most years. So my goal for Sally and Thea is to keep them as healthy and happy as possible. They're Sally's almost 12 and Thea's 15, and they both have some chronic disease issues that mean they probably shouldn't still be with us. So that's my goal for the old guys. But the cobbler's children, the two young dogs I've got, Dora and Yen, I'm quite determined to get Yen going. And I haven't quite decided whether that'll mean in public doing scent work or agility, or maybe both. She's quite good at both. She's a little flying squirrel, so I've got to figure out how to manage the flying squirrel. But apart from that, that's my goal with her. Dora, I would like very much. Because she's barrel and quite reactive and quite a character, I'm going to continue working on some of my online stuff. She's working on her trick titles and has been doing quite well at them. I was thinking about adding parkour to it as well. And then personally, because I like agility and she likes agility, we'll do some agility at home.

Because one of my real goals is to get out and keep doing some personal growth stuff for me. So attending some seminars, attending some workshops. I hope I'm going to be, if I'm invited, driving down to camp for one night and hanging out for the afternoon and the next overnight and the morning after. That's my intention. So to get to camp, to see everybody, that's actually high on the list of my personal dog goals. And yeah, I think it'll be a fun year. I'm looking forward to doing lots of stuff. We're also planning on holding an iron dog competition here at the farm. So that'll be something new for me. Oh, fun. Yeah, we're going to run one, I think. And a couple of FDSA students have offered to help. And I think it'll be great. So I'm looking forward to setting that up. We have over 200 acres, including a lovely hill that's quite steep. So we're going to have options where you can do the iron dog thing or do a training thing. You choose your option so that people will get different points for doing it. And it'll be a little less of a physical challenge if you choose to do the training options all the way along. Nice walk with some training blocks. Yeah, so lots going on in my life I'm looking forward to in a doggy sense for 2018. So I certainly hope you make it to camp. And do you want to mention where you're located in case there's anybody listening who's close enough to come out for the dog event? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm in Prince Edward County in Ontario. So in between Ottawa and Toronto, pretty well halfway in between Toronto and Ottawa. So a pretty, pretty part of the world. Lots of wineries and craft breweries and art galleries and lots of things for spouses to do while you play with your dogs for the morning. So yeah, yeah, we're a very hotbed of tourism here. Oh, and you know something else I forgot to mention when we were talking about when you're down and out and you can't think of how to get going again, people would be more than welcome to pick up one of, pull one of my task cards out of a deck. So I will make sure I send you a link for how they can get a task card to re-motivate themselves. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. And then just because I know you mentioned your blog earlier, and I'm assuming that'll be the best place to get more info on the Iron Dog stuff, but correct me if I'm wrong. Do you want to just mention what your website is? It's Andrea Agility Addict blog spot, and you'll find it quickly. It's got really good SEO, despite the fact I've done no work on it, Melissa. You'd be proud of me. Yeah, so. Excellent.

And I will include a link to it in the show notes for anybody who wants to go check that out. So, perfect. Thank you so much, Andrea. I'm really glad you could come back on, and I honestly couldn't think of a better time to talk goals. So, thank you. It's always a pleasure talking to you, Melissa, either on or offline. I love our conversations, and I always feel like I've learned lots, too. So, thank you so much. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in, both this week and every week this year. We'll be back next week, this time with Amy Cook, to talk about the science of dog training. 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. And Happy New Year's! 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! We'll see you soon.