E106: 바바라 커리어(Barbara Currier) - "일관된 콘택트 존 유지하기"

So we're going to check that out. And then I have Niso. She's my five-year-old miniature poodle. So she is my competitive agility dog. She's the one that I do world team stuff with. And we actually go to world team tryouts in May. So we are heavy into training and conditioning right now and getting strong and doing that. So we're super excited about that. And then my youngest is Eggo. And he's my year-and-a-half-year-old English cocker. He is doing agility and knows all the obstacles. The last one we're working on right now is Weephole. He just got six straight yesterday, so I'm very proud of him. And he is doing fantastic. I took him down to a winter camp recently, and he just blew me away with the stuff he knew and was able to do. And he's turning into quite the little agility boy. That's awesome. Awesome. I look forward to seeing what he gets up to. I know. I can't wait. It's going to be really fun. I'm having a good time with him. So the plan today is to talk teeters and contacts. So I kind of want to start with the basics. You know, why is having a good contact behavior so important to be competitive in agility? So the most obvious reason is safety. So the rule in agility is they have to have one paw in the yellow, which is, if you look at the yellow, it's a really big space. So one paw in the yellow, even for small dogs, if that's your only criteria, it opens the door for the dogs to leap off way earlier than they should. And that's a lot of wear and tear on their bodies. But one of the main reasons is to have good independence. The contacts give you a chance to get to the next place on course that you need to be. And especially for those of us that have dogs that are way faster than we are, that pause when the dog is doing their behavior, if it's been taught completely independently, you can leave them to be doing their job while you have a chance to get down the line and get to the next place that you need to be so that you aren't always steering the bus from behind. I personally like to steer my race cars from the front. So the contacts are one of the ways that I use to get ahead of them on course. Is all of the different contact behavior kind of the same? You know, just training for one obstacle differ? Does it carry over? I mean, how do the different obstacles kind of compare, you know, when it comes to training the contacts? So the dog walk and the A-frame are kind of similar in ways. The A-frame obviously has a steeper descent. So there's more, the dog has to learn more about really shifting their weight back into their rear.

So they don't kind of get the wheelbarrow effect where their hind end comes up over their forend. But the basics of them, I find that the dogs transition from one to the other quite easily. The one that can be different is the teeter, especially if you have a dog that is small. Because oftentimes what we do with the small dogs is we teach them a four-on versus a two-on, two-off because a lot of teeters have a reverb. And so when they come down and hit the ground, they will bounce back up. And so for the small dogs, they're not heavy enough to keep it from coming up and hitting them in the stomach. And then it makes them really leery to want to do the teeter. So we teach them a four-on versus the two-on, two-off. And that can be confusing to some dogs because you want a two-on, two-off for the A-frame and the dog walk, but then the teeter comes and there's a four-on. The other thing that can happen for some dogs is if the width of the teeter and the width of the dog walk are the same. So if you have a dog that is nervous about the teeter because of the movement or the sound or whatever, oftentimes young dogs will associate the dog walk with the same thing. So when you're seeing fear happen on the teeter, they'll think as they're going up the dog walk that it's the teeter. And so they'll start to become a little nervous on the dog walk because they're expecting it to move and it doesn't move. And they just keep waiting for the bottom to drop out from behind, from under them. And so you'll often see there is a little bit of a correlation between fear there until they start to realize and you pair a verbal with it that the dog walk is not going to move. That's just that long clank you run over and it's not going to move like the teeter does. Interesting. I hadn't really thought about how that looked from the dog's picture and they don't always necessarily realize that they're two very different obstacles at first. Yeah. And a lot of times on course, like we've actually seen this happen at some national events. The way course design is oftentimes if you are looking at it from the dog's point of view and they're going up the teeter and there is a tunnel that's nearby. And so from the dog's vantage point, it looks like the tunnel depth wise is under the teeter, even though it's not, they will associate it that it must be the dog walk. And so they will race up the teeter and they'll launch off the top of the teeter. And, you know, it'll happen. We've seen it happen at national events with very experienced dogs. And you can see that they clearly thought it was the dog walk and they got to the end

and they're like, where'd the rest of the obstacle go? And because with the tunnel being there, it wasn't an optical illusion for them that made them think it was the dog walk. Interesting. That's kind of crazy. Yeah, it is. It is. So when it comes to consistency, I mean, I know a lot of people kind of struggle with getting really consistent contact behaviors. Why is that? Why do you think that is? Well, a lot of times I tell my students that, you know, dogs understand black and white. They don't really understand gray. So the more precise you are with your criteria, I expect my facts, your two back feet on the contact, your front feet on the ground. I teach a nose touch also because the more, the more layers in your behavior, the longer it will hold up over time. So oftentimes when people come to me and they're struggling with contacts, I'll ask them what their criteria is. And it will be really simple. Like I just want them to get me yellow. Well, that's really broad. So the broader, I mean, you're really leaving a lot up to the dog to just figure out. And so therefore it's really going to deteriorate. But if you tell the dog, I need you to do A, B, C, and D, they're like, oh, okay. Yeah, I got this. No problem. The other thing that I see that happens a ton is people will have a really good base in practice. And then they start trialing and we get bit by that. I want a cue bug. And that competitive spirit comes out and they start releasing quickly and they let criteria slide. And then they wonder why their contacts have deteriorated. And the dogs learn how to be trial savvy really, really quickly. They, cause they'll say to me, well, my dog never breaks at home, but they can't hold their contacts in trial. Well, they've learned that at home, if they break their contact, you're going to market, you're going to make them do it again. Something, there's going to be something, there's going to be some sort of, uh, repercussion that happens with that. We're in a trial. If they break their contact, everyone, you know, they technically were still in the yellow, so we still could cue and people just get sucked into it and they keep running. So the dog learns, oh, I don't have to do that stuff here. I just do whatever I want here and I get to keep running. But at home, I have to do that stuff. And so they learn to be trial savvy really, really quickly. And then it's really hard to break them of that. And then also, you know, in my opinion, I don't think it's fair to then punish your dog when you've been letting them do this all along. And now you say, okay, wait a minute. Now you can't do this anymore.

I mean, you know, you, you really need to go back and retrain because you let them get away with it. And so it's really on us. It's not on them. Mm-hmm. So to dig into that, I guess, a little bit more, if somebody, you know, had solid contacts, you know, but they are starting to see them slowly deteriorate, you know, how do you kind of dive into that? Where would you start to kind of repair that behavior? Well, again, I look at what's happening in practice versus what's happening in trials. One of, so a lot of things happen. You either have the dog that won't even try to stop. They just come barreling down and they just jump off like they have running contacts. Um, and that's usually the dog that, um, has the, that's being less let to get away with this at trials and, um, there's no repercussions for it. So they're not marking it. There's no, there's no information to the dog that that's not okay. Then you have the dog that, um, creeps. They get to the top of the A-frame and they come down super slow, or they get to the down ramp of the dog walk and they start to creep down really slow and they stop before they get to the yellow and stare at you. And then they'll creep a little more and they stop. And so usually that is the person that has started quick releasing their contacts. So the dog barely gets down to the criteria of say the back feet on and the front feet off. And they may only get to four feet right at the bottom of the contact. And the handler starts releasing early because that clock's ticking and, you know, we need to win. And so they release early. So what's happening is the dog's like, okay, I thought I was supposed to come down here, but now you're releasing me when I get to here. So they start creeping down the ramp going, are you going to release me now? What about now? How about now? Now, now. And the whole time the handler's going touch, touch, touch. And so, and so we're also behavior chaining in every time my handler says touch, I take another step forward. And so it's this game that's this volleyball game back and forth from the handler to the dog. So oftentimes I have to kind of figure out which one it is. And usually, you know, by what the dog's doing, I can figure out quickly which one it is. And then, you know, I say to the handler, so is this what you're doing? And yeah. Yes. And so from there, what we have to do is we, we kind of have to go back to the basics and we have to teach the dog that we're only going to say their, their touch command once, and then we're going to wait them out. And that we're going to, there's a ton of value at the bottom of the contact.

You want to get to the bottom of the contact as fast as possible. Getting to the top of the A-frame and standing there and waiting isn't going to, isn't going to do anything for you. You want to drive down to that bottom. So we need to put the value back in the bottom. And then we need to be super, super consistent. We need to trial exactly how we train. So if blowing your contacts at home is not allowed, well then blowing your contacts and trials can't be allowed. And it doesn't matter if you're still clean by the rules of this sport, you have to be fair to the dog and expect the same thing from them. I can probably guess at this point, but you know, stop versus running contacts. You know, what do you teach and why? So I actually teach both. All my dogs have both running and both stopped on two different verbals. Because oftentimes the course will have a discrimination where at the bottom of the A-frame, say, there's a tunnel and we're going to do a sharp right turn slip back into the tunnel. Well, in that particular situation, I don't necessarily want to do a running contact because I don't want my dog running straight off the A-frame. And especially if there's a jump out there, you know, they're going to go. And so that would be a place where I would want to use my stop verbal so that they'll come into a stop and then I can just flip them into the tunnel. But in that same course, it may be dog walk just to a straight, straight out tunnel or something like that, where I don't want them to stop. I want them to run as hard as they can. So it's nice to have two different verbals where oftentimes in the same course, I may have a stop on the A-frame and a run on the dog walk or the other way around, a stop on the dog walk and a run on the A-frame. So I teach both. And also I compete at an international level. And at an international level, you pretty much have to have running contacts to have any chance of being up in the top times. It's just so fast. And you really don't have a chance with stop contacts. So that's not typical, though, right? Most people don't teach both, right? At the more advanced levels, a lot of people teach both. Interesting. With small dogs. Yeah, with small dogs. With large dogs, most people usually just do running. And it also depends on what your level of running is. The more of an athlete you are, the more you can still deal with beating your dog on running contacts. But if you struggle with sometimes beating your dog, then either having both or having stop contacts is a better option. Because if your dog just smokes you off of a line and takes off course obstacles because

you can't be there, well, that doesn't do you any good. So I know you have a class on this stuff in April. So for the class, which one do you kind of go into or do you go into both? I do not go into both. I just teach stopped in this class. So to teach running, it's very, very, very in-depth. And there is a ton of repetitions. And actually, running contacts is harder on a dog's body than stop contacts. And a lot of people think it's the other way around. But the running contacts is all about striding. And where stop contacts we teach, you know, your back feet go here, your front feet go here. On running contacts, it is a certain number of strides up, a certain number of strides down. And you have to... It's very hard to see unless you've trained your eye to see that. And you have to do the entire obstacle over and over and over and over because it becomes muscle memory for the dog. Where stop contacts, you can do a ton of training just on the bottom behavior and on a travel plank, which is no wear and tear on the dog's body. So the stop contacts are easier on the dog's body. Also, if stop contacts are taught properly, the dog should come down and have their weight shifted in their hind end. To prevent them from coming down and having all of their weight jammed into their shoulders. So a lot of people don't like stop contacts because they think it's hard on the dog's shoulders. Well, if it's not trained properly and your dog doesn't know how to rock their weight back, it is hard on their shoulders. But that should not be the way the dogs come down. But then you also have dogs that have different structure. So sometimes that, you know, you have to modify sometimes. Like I don't particularly want a dachshund doing a two on, two off because of their long back. I don't want that bend in their back. So for a dachshund, we may teach them a four on the ground right at the base of the obstacle so that they come all the way down, but they're going to stop at the very bottom. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, that's interesting. So all four feet would actually be off the contact then technically at the bottom so they're flat? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. So they come right. So they, so they're completely legal because they've come right down through the yellow, but they have stopped at on the ground. And so their backs remain flat because with the longer back breeds, you know, that's something that you have to think about. And then also dogs that have very heavy front ends, like a lot of the staffy breeds that are very front end heavy.

And, you know, like French bulldogs who like basically 90% of their mass in their head, you don't particularly want them doing a two on, two off because they, I mean, it's physically almost impossible for them to rock their weight back appropriately in their haunches. So you're going to get this wheelbarrow effect where they're always going to be like doing a handstand basically at the bottom of the contact. And, and so that's not good on their bodies either. So sometimes with a dog structure, we have to adjust a little bit on how we do it. Now the class focuses on the teeter and contacts, right? So would you mind talking us a little bit through, I guess, your approach for training with the teeter? Sure. So there's a lot of things that break down the teeter because there's many elements to the teeter that cause a lot of dog stress. So there's the, the, the sound first off, um, many dogs are sound sensitive and the sound is a big deal to a lot of dogs. So we do, um, sound games in the beginning to help them get really comfortable with pairing the bang with a reinforcement so that they don't feel like that, you know, we, we, we've, we've taken away that fear of the noise. So we do a lot of that stuff. Also with the teeter, there's the motion. It's, and I, I often say to, to handlers, you know, have you ever gone up the teeter? Because it's, it's really interesting that I find sometimes people get discouraged and frustrated with their dog when they are fearful of the teeter. And so I say, well, have you done it? Because I've done it. I've walked over the teeter and I'll tell you, it's a little intimidating walking up this board only knowing it's going to drop out from under you in about two seconds. Right. So, and, and yet we want our dogs to race to the bottom and run it and ride it down. And so, you know, I really want to play a lot of games with my dogs in the beginnings so that they really enjoy that motion. And the fact that it is going to drop out from under them, that they are prepared for it and they know how to do it. So I do a lot of movement games with them, um, where I, you know, the movement is very small to start with and we build it up and so that they're really wanting to ride it to the end. Um, oftentimes for the small dogs, especially the teeter is as an obstacle, um, is a better obstacle for large dogs, obviously, because they, they make it tip faster for small dogs. They, the tip point, even though it's supposed to be the same, it's not on every teeter, it's really different. And so a lot of small dogs will learn to run to where their tip point is on the teeter that

they train on the most. And they'll ride down at the tip point and then they'll ooch into position at the bottom. Well, the problem is the tip point changes from teeter to teeter. So you'll get to a trial and the dog will go to the place that they are expecting the tip to happen and the tip won't happen. And then they just stand there because they're like, well, it should be moving now. So what we want to train our small dogs, especially to do is drive all the way to the end of the teeter as fast as they can and ride the whole tip down from the very edge of the teeter, almost like it's a surfboard. And that can be scary for dogs. So I like to do a lot of games with them in the beginning where I break all of these different things down into really small games and teach them that these are all really fun aspects of this obstacle and really get them to love the obstacle. Can you share a little more kind of on what else you're covering in the class? Maybe who it's for? So really, it's for anybody. It can be for the person that hasn't taught contacts yet and they want to start off on the right foot. And it can also be for somebody who is having issues with their dog. Their dog is starting to blow contacts at trials or their dog had a scary episode happen at the teeter and now they're scared or they fell off the A-frame and now they're scared or they fell off the dog walk and now they're scared. And so they want to kind of go back and retrain and get the love back for the dog in that obstacle. So really, this class is for anybody. Awesome. That kind of answers my next one, which I was going to ask you that specifically, you know, that if a dog has had a bad experience with the equipment, you know, could they sign up? So it sounds like the answer is definitely a yes. Yeah, absolutely. There's so many of the games in here will teach them that it's not scary because it happens all the time. You know, when dogs are going across obstacles that are this narrow at the speed that we're asking them to go across, things happen. They fall off. You know, they think that the teeter is a dog walk and they launch off the end and that's really scary. I mean, these obstacles are pretty high off the ground and you've got some dogs that are fearless and will just jump right back on like it's nothing. And then you have other dogs that are like, nope, nope, nope, nope. Don't want to do that again. And so then we have to kind of go, all right, all right, we're going to take some steps back here and we're going to show you that this is not as terrifying as you think it is. Right, right.

So as a final question, what's a lesson you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Um, well, I would have to thank my dear little waffle for that. He has been really awesome in just teaching me. He reminds me all the time and it's something I try to always keep in mind, but to train the dog that you have in front of you. He is a very bold dog, always has been. Um, I don't ever believe he actually even went through a fear period. If he did, I never noticed it, but when it comes to training, he's incredibly soft. He doesn't fail. Well, um, if he fails, he would go off and sniff and he didn't recover well from failing. And he was just so, so soft when, and he doesn't like to be wrong in training. Um, and his default is, well, I'm just going to leave and go sniff. So I really had to take a look at every single training session that we did, you know, have a strong plan when I was going out, you know, what am I hoping he learns today? What am I going to do if he does this? How am I going to keep this short? And I also found with him, he didn't like to repeat things, but oftentimes, and that's very common with a lot of dogs, but we really, for our benefit, need to repeat stuff so that we can kind of get some muscle memory down too. So with him, I would have to do something once. And if he was right, go do something else and then come back and do that same thing again so that I could get my teamwork down with him. But yet he wasn't constantly having to repeat stuff. Um, and I've really had to just, you know, watch him and learn his signs of I'm getting tired and stop before those signs started to happen. And it's amazing how resilient he's become because he's like I said earlier, he's learning weave now where a lot of failure happens with weave and he is handling it like a champ. I mean, he just is, he can be wrong three times in a row and he doesn't care. He's going to keep trying. And I'm just, I'm really thrilled with how he's developing. That's awesome. I'm glad to hear things are coming along so nicely. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, Barbara. This has been fun. Oh, thanks again for having me. I just, I love coming on and talking to you. Absolutely. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Lori Stevens to talk about massage for performance dogs. Don't miss it. If you haven't already subscribed 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 Fensi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fensi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by benson.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music Warrior 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 pense pense pense pense pense pense