E270: 드레스덴 그라프(Dresden Graff) - 예민한 영혼을 위한 훈련

trust that that takes, like just seemed so magical to me. So when I did finally get that dog, Miss Lily, I talked my parents into finding an Agility class. And that's where I met my mentor, Denise Lacey, who was very, very patient with me and my silly red dog. Yeah, no. My dad dutifully took me to classes every single week and sat on the floor and played Civilization on his DS until I could drive. I love that. Starting out in Agility, have you kind of always been in the positive trainer arena or kind of what got you started heading down that path? Yeah. Starting in Agility gave me a really big leg up into the world of positive training. And then starting in Agility, especially with a fearful dog, made positive training a necessity. You simply cannot force or pressure a dog into confidence. So yeah, between the sport that I happen to choose and the dog I happen to have, it made it a very easy choice. Yeah. So somebody was kind of asked you for a general sense of what your training philosophy is now. How would you describe it? That's such a question in the dog world right now. But for sports, the big thing that I look at is, are we having fun? We meaning both me and my dog. And if not, what do we need to change so that we are having fun? And training is about celebrating little victories. And if we're not celebrating victories, then we're just finding areas that need work. If my dog is struggling, then it's due to something that I haven't properly prepared them for. And that clarity is kindness and knowing what you want and work on the pieces and the picture will come together. I like that. Lots of good lines in there. So how has kind of that approach impacted life, training, world through dogs? Well, you talk to a lot of instructors. So you probably know that like work-life balance doesn't really exist for many of us. It's not just instructors. So yeah. So, you know, they're tangled together pretty tightly. So I do try to bring that same philosophy into like how I teach. And in recent years, like how I treat myself as well. So like empathy comes really easily when I'm teaching. And, you know, it's okay to take things at the pace of the learner, whether that's me or my students or my dogs. And that, you know, when you hit a big roadblock, you can just break that into manageable pieces, celebrate the little things, even when the big picture is still really messy. So congrats on competing at the National Agility Championships this year. I don't know. Is it your first year? No. This is my third year competing. That's awesome. How'd it go? Oh my goodness. It was a blast. We had so much fun.

The surface was awesome. As far as we were concerned, Harley Quinn, little Queen Bee, just absolutely thrives in the spotlight. She loves that, the additional spark of energy that competitive nature tends to bring to big events. And it's just really fun to be in an event with a dog that wants to really be there. She's eight years old, so we know each other really well. And in our clear rounds, she did spectacular. She was in the top 20 out of like 140. So I'm really, really pleased. Yeah, it's a lot to be pleased about. So part of the reason I wanted to chat today is we've got you on the schedule to do a webinar coming up on May 26th, which should be the Thursday after this comes out. So you're talking about seesaw strategies for the sensitive soul. So can you tell me just a little bit about what kind of dog it is that we're talking about when we say sensitive soul? Yeah. When I say sensitive soul, I'm referring to dogs that are thinkers rather than doers in training sessions. You can almost see them doing the math before they act on something. Sensitive souls might be very aware of movement or sound, or they're just straight up scared of it. They don't bounce back quite as easily from setbacks. And if something scares them or worries them, they definitely think twice before jumping back in to give it another try. If you think you have a sensitive soul, you probably do. Just one of those where it either, you know, you need to help your dog a little bit more or you don't. A perfect example with my dogs currently is the difference between Harley and Poison, two of my Papillons. Harley's really resilient, a look without leaping, literally kind of dog. She's very confident that things will always work out for her. Poison is not at all that way. While she has plenty of drive, she's definitely lacking in resilience. So with her, I don't get to be sloppy or lumpy in my training sessions. We have to work through individual elements. I have to dot every I, cross every T. I don't know how much longer that's going to be an expression with all the digital stuff we got going on. But, you know, really check all the boxes. And I don't get very many things for free with her. I really have to put the pieces together to get where I want to go. Really kind of break things down. Yes, absolutely. So can you talk a little bit about how you approach kind of teaching a seesaw or a teeter behavior, especially maybe with a dog like that? Sure. Sure. I train with a lot of empathy. So like I consider training seesaws with really sensitive dogs to be like an open heart kind of policy.

By that, I mean like acknowledging that the concern or worry or fear that the dog has regarding the seesaw is very real to them. And it's our job as the handler to support our dog and offer them support. And sometimes that means listening to our dogs when they say maybe not right now or I don't feel like I can do this. It's our job to be just a beacon of patience and guiding confidence. So what kind of symptoms or signs might a handler see when they're kind of working on those skills? And maybe the dog does fall into that sensitive soul category. What might kind of hint at that? Oh, symptoms makes it sound so clinical. Fair enough. Some signs when you're working on teeter skills might be things like you feel like you're always coming back to square one. Every time you start a teeter session or maybe you get them to play the bang game and you feel like you've got that down solid, but then it falls apart when you add in the rest of the seesaw. Your dog might kind of look from side to side as they navigate the tilt of the teeter, that pivot point. When the teeter hits the ground, they might shoot forward or you might see other little things like they kind of lack confidence in being able to discern which one's the dog walk and which one's the teeter. So you'll see some creeping on the up ramp, on the dog walk after you've started working on the seesaw. And then things like a beautiful performance on their home field, but difficulty when they see different seesaws at trials. Kind of different difficulty with generalizing some of that. Yes. Can you share just a little more on the webinar specifically? Kind of what you'll cover who might want to attend? Sure. If you're struggling with any of the things I just mentioned, this webinar is for you. We'll definitely be covering the bits and pieces of training the seesaw. Things that you might not get out of your typical like weekly agility class. So we'll talk about being creative as far as working on noise and slight tipping point changes. That mean a lot to sensitive dogs, especially when you only have one seesaw that you have access to. So maybe just that one at your training center or just the one in your backyard. And we'll focus on teasing out the individual pieces of the seesaw and building up confidence in each part. So the approach, the up ramp, the tipping point, the initial landing, the bounce back, end criteria, and exit. I love that. I love how you've broken it down to each of those individual components because I don't think I could have named that many little pieces for the one behavior. So I think it indicates good things.

Oh, yeah. I've had some many a student and many a dog show me exactly how many pieces there are. How many different pieces? Yeah. Yeah. All right. And so I've kind of got a couple of questions. I usually ask guests the first time they're on the webinar here kind of at the end. So the first one is what's the training related accomplishment that you're proudest of? Oh, there are so many moments that bring me a lot of joy. But I am incredibly proud of every moment with one of my sensitive dogs where they feel confident enough to show off their real skills at a trial. Seeing something that used to be a huge struggle for them get tackled with ease due to a mutual trust and full understanding of the task. It's just magical. Just like when I first watched that agility on TV as a kid. Like that's exactly what I was hoping for when I got into dogs and when I got into dog training. Whether it was my first dog doing this seesaw at our very first national after probably a year and a half of working on it. To my shepherd mix just strutting his stuff for our off-leash healing. Or even just my silly little poison when she looks up at me in a trial and seeing that she's not worried about the people or the dogs around her. And that like it's just us and we got this. Yeah. Yeah. What is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Ever is really big. But right now one that's really struck a chord with me as I'm working on jumping skills with vice is one of Susan Sallow's quotes. Which is set your dog up to be successful and reward him highly for his efforts. And what he offers you as your working partner will amaze even the most skeptical. Always try to remember that while training is a mechanical skill, the relationship is not. Enjoy the process. I like the reminder that relationship is not a mechanical skill. It gets easy to forget that. Absolutely. Absolutely. My professional background is an ABA. And like Bob Bailey's chicken camps is kind of what got me into more professional training and moving down to Texas. So yeah, that's definitely one that like kind of brings me back to my roots of why I got into dog training. Yeah. So the last one here. Who is somebody else in the training world that you look up to? Many of the instructors at FDSA are absolutely fantastic and have helped me quite a bit on my training journeys. But the first trainer that I really like looked up to and was like, wow, I want to be like her when I grow up was Sylvia Turkman. The stuff that she does in agility is fantastic.

She really stresses relationship first and confidence first and just going out and having fun with your dog. The rest will come. Yeah. Yeah. The rest will come. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Justin. You are so welcome. Anytime. Yeah. And thank you to all our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Sarah Bruschi to talk about Mondial Ring Obedience. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. We'll 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 benson.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in. Happy training. Bye.