E175: 사라 브루스크(Sara Brueske) - "몽디오링: 입질하는 개만을 위한 것이 아님"

So if you hear a little squeaking going on on my microphone, that's my young girl, Wilde, who's very upset we're not outside playing right now. But we're also doing our virtual Coolie celebration right now. Our Coolie National went online this year. And so we're spending all week doing things like agility and disc dog and stuff like that to celebrate our Coolies worldwide. So that's really exciting. That is really exciting. It's kind of neat that they took it virtual. Yeah, we're giving it a go. This is my first time hosting a competition online, and I'm really liking it so far. It's really cool connecting with people all over the world. And if we were doing it just local, we would have some people from Canada and then everybody else from America. And since this breed is really heavily based in Australia, it's really nice seeing some of those dogs compete as well. Very cool. So I wanted to have you on today to talk about my earring, kind of starting with the basics. I think some people listening have probably maybe vaguely have an idea of it as a bitey dog sport. And other people probably haven't heard of it at all before. So can you just generally start with kind of basics? Tell us a little bit about it, starting with how it's pronounced. I've heard it pronounced lots of different ways, but I think it's pronounced mondio ring, not like monadiering or any of those, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's mondio ring. And it's just another form of ring sport. So ring sport generally is French ring or Belgian ring and mondio ring are the three different ring sports out there. And they just kind of talk about protection sports. And each of those sports has like an obedience element mixed in. They are very similar to IGP, also known as IPO or Schutzen. But the big difference is we don't really have a tracking phase. We do have a scent discrimination exercise, but we don't have that tracking phase in our sport. All of the bite work sports, the protection sports all have different emphasis as far as what they want to see in the dog. So like Schutzen, IGP, IPO, whichever one you want to call it, they really focus on it as a breed ability test for German shepherds. That's how it was created. And so they judge really heavily on things like grip, on temperament stability, on precision, that sort of thing. Versus mondio ring, we really like to see functionality. And that's really kind of the basis of the sport. So you have your set exercises. We do have an obedience portion, a jumps portion, and a protection portion. And so with those three phases, they're all done at the same time.

So you enter the field once, you do all three phases, and then you're done. Versus like IGP, you go do your tracking, then you load your dog up, probably drive off to the obedience field. You do your obedience, then you load your dog up, and then you do your protection on that same field afterwards. So it's separated that way. Mondio ring is a little bit tough because you have to go through obedience, and then right then go straight into the jumps, and then right then go straight into your protection work. And so your dogs are pretty tired by the end. A mondio three routine can take anywhere from a half hour to 45 minutes with your dog on the field working the whole time. Generally, a mondio ring one will take about 15 minutes or so to get through. And then obviously the two is somewhere in between those. And so it's a pretty complex sport, but even though you know the exercises that you're going to be doing, so you're always going to do these exercises, there's going to be a big difference as far as the order of those exercises. So those obedience exercises could be presented in any order. For instance, you can start with your food refusal and then go into a sendaway, and then maybe the little wood exercise right after that in the same direction as your sendaway. So now your dog just ran full blast down that field, and now they have to run that same line, but they have to find a tiny piece of wood that has your scent on it. So it can be really challenging that way. The other thing that mondio ring is really known for is environmental challenges. And so you have no idea what that field is going to look like when you step onto that field. So for club level trials, you do get an open field day. Mostly, you don't have to have that. We really try to let competitor dogs go on the field the day before just to kind of get exposed to it and see what challenges we've kind of laid out. But that's not a necessary thing. And especially at national worlds level, you don't get that opportunity. And so when your dogs go on that field, there's all sorts of different things. Let's see, in Minnesota, our last trial we had, they had this giant blow up unicorn that had water spraying out of its horn. So and our dogs had to do like the little wood through that or, you know, like some sort of challenge that way. There's also like food placed on the field for level two and level three. So while your dog's hunting for the little wood, they might have to run past some really good smelling fish that's on the ground or something along those lines.

And so that environmental challenge is really, really a hard aspect of this. And the judges get really creative as far as those environmental challenges. And so while it's not judged as heavily on things like precision, so your dog doesn't have to have that beautiful heads up heel that they might in Schutzen, you can have that and get full points, but it's not necessary. So things are judged more on like making sure your dog doesn't forage and heel or leg and heel, but they don't have to have that high stepping precision heel for sure. So everything's kind of based on functionality. Interesting. So I know that you, you know, there's this new kind of OB titling program as part of this. So can you just talk about that a little bit more, like how that differs from the Bitey Dog bits? A little more about kind of what that part of the trial looks like? Absolutely. So we have this obedience or obedience and jumps title. So it's two different tracks. And it was developed by Karen Shivers. So she just, you know, put this program together to try to promote monitoring as a sport for all dogs, not just our protection sport dogs and not just the Belgian Malinois, the Dutch Shepherds, the German Shepherds to get more dogs out on the field competing. And so typically the way it works at a trial is you do a dog in white. So level one dogs would go, you'd watch a dog in white and that dog would demonstrate all of the exercises in the routine of the trial. So you watch that dog and then you'd, the level one. So the monitoring one dogs would go and compete. And then after that would be the obedience dogs. And so they do the same exact routine as your Mondi-O-Ring level one dogs. They just don't do the protection portion. And if you're doing just the OB track, just the obedience track, you just wouldn't do the jumps. And so it's really cool because you're doing those same challenges as those protections for our dogs, just not the bitey part of it. And so you get all of the same stuff, all the same challenges, all the same functionality and everything else like that, just minus the protection. What are the exercises? So there's a whole bunch of exercises. I'm going to pull up the thing here so I don't miss any because I always tend to do that. In level one, you have healing and it's a general healing pattern. There's generally a left turn, a right turn and about turn with two stops. And then you might be going over an obstacle or through obstacles or something along those lines. So you don't really know as far as that goes. There's no like pace changes or anything like that. You're not allowed to talk to your dog.

So anything that is considered a second cue would be a loss of like all of the points. So you can't talk to your dog. You can't gesture to your dog or anything like that. So that's part of the challenge. Then you have your absence of handler. So it's a down stay for one minute. So you put your dog in a down stay. You go and disappear. And there's some sort of distraction. And that distraction, again, could be who knows what. And where you put your dog could be really kind of challenging. So you might actually put your dog in a hide and then walk away. So your dog is actually the one hiding versus you. Then you have your send away. And for that, I believe it's 30 meters for level one. And so your dog just runs straight out. Once they pass the line, you can call them back. And they just have to get within a meter of you and stabilize there. And then position changes. So it's a three position change. So stand, sit down at a distance. I think it's 10 meters or five meters. I'm not sure I should probably have checked that. We just change for all or we just train for all sorts of different distances. And that with the position changes, the handler could be in any position. So you might be like partially hidden behind something. You might be sitting down. You might be standing. Then you have your food refusal. So you put your dog in a down. Somebody presents food to the dog. The dog obviously cannot eat the food. And then you can come back. And that food, who knows what it is? It could be a hot dog. It could be one time it was a banana moon pie. And so that was really great. And then the retrieve. So retrieve, it can be any object. It could be over an obstacle or it could be into an obstacle as well. And those are the obedience exercises for level one. Then level two and level three, we just have the addition of little wood, which is also known as a search for an object. And so what that is, it's a dowel that has your scent on it. So you get that at check-in. You put your scent on it. You put it in your pocket. And then when you put that out there, it's along with like four other little wood objects that don't have your scent on it. And again, it could be within an object. It could be partially disguised, whatever. So you don't know that distraction. But yeah, so that's your handler scent discrimination exercise. Interesting. So you talked a little bit through the titling and scoring, but can you just maybe talk a little more about kind of how things are similar or different to what people might expect from something like an AKC obedience trial or an agility trial? Like how it... Yeah.

So the big difference is like in an AKC obedience trial, you have these in-between times, right? So you do your exercise, exercise finish, and then you have this in-between time. And that in-between time isn't typically that long because your ring isn't that big, right? And so to get to one point to another, it's only like maybe 10 or 15 steps. The big difference in a monitoring trial is that in-between. So not just your dog has to do all of these exercises, but they have to stay connected with you while you walk across this giant field to the next exercise. And then you have to perform another exercise, and you have to walk all the way back across to do another exercise. And so it's that in-between where your dog has to be with you, connected with you. And then able to work again, even if it's really hot outside or all these distractions, all these people walking around with you. And so that's really the big challenge is that it's not... It's not really a predictable thing. And it gets challenging that way. So I think as far as that goes, that's the big difference between like an AKC obedience and even with IGP. IGP is generally set up pretty efficiently where you end up kind of where you need to start again. So you don't have this giant walk across the giant field thing. And as far as judging goes, it's really based more on functionality, like I said. So you do get knocked points for things like your dog moving forward in positions. But generally, at the lower levels, the judges tend to be a little bit more lenient. So like level one, you get a lot more forgiveness versus at level three, they're going to judge you a lot more harshly as far as that kind of stuff goes. So it's not so precision based. And like I said, for all the recalls, the dog just has to stabilize within a meter of you. So you get a lot of choices as far as what behaviors can look like. So for like instance, in IGP, a recall, your dog ends up in front position. And that's really judged as far as how good that front position is. For Maggio, I can have my dog end up in front position. I can have them finish at my left side, my right side. I can have them stand between my legs. How they get in between my legs is completely up to that, you know, up to me. So I can have a lot of kind of wiggle room as far as what these behaviors actually look like. And the same with healing. My dog doesn't have to be on my left side for healing. I could have a right side heal. And in fact, I train four different versions of healing per creature. He has a left heal, a right heal. Both of those are heads up and head targeted heals.

And he has a left heal and a right heal where he's able to look around at the environment around him. And I use all four of those healing in our routine at some point. And so you get a lot more leeway as far as what the behaviors actually look like, as long as they're kind of functional. Interesting. So do you have to tell the judge kind of before you do an exercise what the behavior is going to look like? Like, I'm not going to end in this or just kind of do it, huh? Yep. Stabilize within a meter of you. And then they'll end the routine there. The other thing that's really, really different that a lot of people notice right away when they watch their first monitoring trial is that everything is dedicated or dictated by a horn. So like a bicycle horn. And so the judge has a horn and like the horn rules all right. And so you walk up to your prep line. This is where you tell your dog what exercise they're going to be doing. So for instance, if I was going to start a send away, I would flip creature to my left side at the prep line. I would give my cue for a send away. So I would target him where he's going to be going. I wait for a horn. The judge honks the horn. I move up to the line of departure. I wait for another horn. And then I cue my dog to go. And then I recall my dog once they cross the line. They come back. I wait for a double horn, which ends the exercise. So that would be like the prep horn would be, are you ready for the exercise in AKC terms? And then the go horn would be like, start your healing or whatever. And then when the dog comes back, that's their exercise finishes the double horn. And so that's kind of like the trademark for both French ring and body ring is that horn. And then I can't, I can't let it go by without asking. You said four different types of healing, easy, different points in the routine. So I'm just curious what you switch back and forth around and when you use what. So I have, so I have my right side heads downhill, which is my A to B behavior. So getting from one exercise to another, because it's a very informal heel. He just has to stay by me and he can kind of scan the environment around him, which is really, really important because Creature is one of those dogs with the more he works, the more he spins up. And so if he was constantly in a heads up heel, by the end of the routine, I would have a dog that was exhausted, not able to think anymore and completely out of control. And so by letting him have this loose heel from A to B, he's able to kind of calm himself in between the exercises and works as an arousal mobility thing.

And then I have a right side head uphill, mostly because I was finding that when I was trying to trial him before he was ready, I was starting to ruin my left side heads uphill. And so I switched it to a right side heads uphill so that if I was seeing him starting to get a little loose in trial environment, or he was getting a little bit out of control, I could just go to my right side heads uphill so that I would protect my left side heel. And then not only that, but on my right side, if I start him on the right side for an exercise, it's generally a calm exercise. So my absence behavior, so my downstate, starts on the right side versus my send away starts on my left side. Anything that starts on the left side is a very exciting thing. And so I can have that extra tool to control his arousal a little bit more. So left side would be like the send away. It would be my retrieve. It would be my long bite attacks. So the things that are like, oh my God, I love to do that, I'll have on the left side. And then I also have my defensive handler on my left side. So it's a heads down on the left side. And then he can just watch the decoys. And that's a protection sport exercise where the decoys take you through a scenario and then doc can't bite until they hit you. So that's done on my left side. And then my formal heel is done on my left side as well. So lots of things. It's kind of cool though, because I really especially like the part about using the other, you know, one side means exciting, one side means not exciting. So it's very consistent with your marker cues. And you don't have to, like everybody hears that and they're like, oh my God, this sport is so complicated. But it's not like the truth at all. So I know tons of people that do everything on their left side. It's not a big deal. And their dogs totally get it. And so it doesn't have to necessarily be this way. I know that it's going to work best for a creature this way in the long run. And that's why I chose to do it this way. Famous, my other Malinois, everything's pretty much down on the left because she was originally an IGP dog. And so, yeah, everything's on the left side for her. Interesting. So we were talking about this a little bit actually before we turned on the recording, but are there any limits to what dogs can participate in the sport and kind of what kind of dogs maybe excel with the exercises? Yeah. So if you're thinking about doing Madiurine in its entirety, really you need a dog that's bred for the sport. And that's not to say that other dogs can't do it.

It's just whether or not they're really going to enjoy the level of pressure that the decoys put on them. So you need a dog that's specifically bred to enjoy to fight. And so that's not what dogs typically are bred for. So dogs that don't like a lot of pressure, they don't really like that confrontation type thing. They're not going to really enjoy like going up to level three. For instance, you might be able to play at the lower levels and really get the exercises done that way. But it really takes a special dog to do that kind of protection thing. And that's why we breed dogs specifically for it. So your Malinois, your Dutch Shepherds, your German Shepherds. I know a few like really cool other breeds that do it as well. I know like Rottweilers will do it. But again, they're kind of bred for that sport. So Black Russian Terriers, if they're bred for protection sports, can do it as well. And so really, really kind of pay attention to that if you want to pursue the whole protection side of it. But as far as obedience and obedience and jumps program goes, any dog can do it. So there is a general rule in monitoring that the dog has to be FCI registered. So that means AKC registered or something, a registry that is associated with FCI. But that doesn't go into effect for our protection dogs until I think we have another couple of years before that goes into effect. But for the obedience and the obedience and jumps track, any dog can participate. So they don't have to be FCI registered or anything like that. Because it is just a United States program. It's not a worldwide program. And so we don't have that limitation on it. And so yeah, you can go ahead. And as long as you are an USMRA, which is the United States Monitoring Association member, and you register your dog with it, you're good to go. So very exciting. Are you going to do it with any of the non-traditional breeds that you have? It's so much work. So it is a very involved sport, even just the obedience side of it. And so I don't know. They all could do it. But because we focus on so many other things, I don't know if we even just have the time to focus on this as well. To add one more sport into the mix. Yes, one more sport. One more giant sport. So from just kind of talking about the sport generally to talking a little more about the training component, what kind of special things really need to be taken into consideration if you're training for this? Environmental stability. So one of my favorite things to do is create really fun, easy games and patterns for my young dogs.

So like treat toss games or recall games or choose to heal, that sort of thing, where my dog's kind of choosing to be engaged with me and then bringing those games out into as many different environments as possible. So I don't really ask my young dogs if I'm training for something like this, or even my dogs that I'm prepping for like show work. I don't ask them to do really hard stuff in new environments until they're older. And so same with this kind of exercise or this kind of sport, because it's so environmentally based. I want my dog going into a new environment, knowing what they're going to be doing and being able to excel at that thing that they're going to be doing. So really focusing on getting your dog out in as million different environments as possible on strange objects, wobbly objects, loud noises, water accessories, because that's definitely a thing, you know, all sorts of different things. And just getting your dog desensitized to those things in these fun games, because if you can do fun games in it, then you'll be able to do your healing in it or your position changes or whatever later on. So I guess environmental stability is some people would call it, you know, generalization proofing. And that's kind of a big, big part of being successful in sport. Can you talk a little more about kind of how you start that? I know you've got some specific stuff you do kind of really early on to help dogs with some of that stuff. So can you just dive into that a little deeper? Yeah. So kind of like everything you do for agility as far as like wobble boards and like the teeter work and kind of like moving up against things and that sort of thing. Absolutely. And then bringing them to stores because who knows what goes on in like stores. A lot of times you have like an employee running by with a giant rolling cart or if you go to like Home Depot or Lowe's if they allow dogs in the store, there's somebody driving by with a forklift. Like that sort of thing is really, really cool. So I tend to look for distractions and I tend to invite them. So a lot of times I'll go to a park specifically if there is a soccer game or something like that and work my dog around that versus just going to new places. So I specifically look for those environmental challenges and then work those really easy games and patterns around those things. Interesting. I think a lot of handlers, you know, they're used to hearing kind of pretty early on they should break their training down into lots of pieces and gradually make things harder. And I'd imagine that that certainly applies here, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

But it's kind of definitely one of those things that's easier said than done. So I wanted to see if you have any tips or tricks that you could share for handlers, kind of maybe help them avoid either overfacing their dog, going too fast or, you know, not being able to tell their dog is ready for a little bit more, maybe going too slow. Just how do you kind of help? Yeah. So with environmental stuff, so we'll stay on that little tangent versus training behaviors and accidentally pushing those a little bit too far. But with like the environmental stuff, I always like to give my dogs that choice. But then I don't let them sit in that choice for too long. And so there's kind of like this really fine balance between letting your dog choose to engage with you versus letting them practice not engaging with you, right? And so that's a really big thing. And so I tend to pick games that give my dog that choice naturally. So things I choose to heal where I toss a treat away and then they choose to follow me back in that healing program. That's a huge, huge foundation behavior from onto your ring because that's essentially what the sport is, is staying with you, right? And so if you teach that right away, it's a really, really good thing to do. But what I can do is observe how quickly they come back to me. So I toss that treat out. Do they spend some time scanning the environment? Do they sniff? What do they do after they eat that treat and before they connect with me? And that's where I can really observe whether my dog is ready for more challenges or not. If their normal is to eat the treat, sniff once or twice, and then come back into heel position, that's great. If they're performing that, that's great. That's their normal. But now that same dog eats that treat and then they sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, and then they reconnect. That's giant information right there. So if they deviate from their normal, and that's why it's so important to have those pattern games and know what your dog normally does in an environment that they can excel in because then you can start to see subtle little changes in those pattern games and catch it before your dog completely blows you off. And so giving them that choice but catching them choosing not to want to engage early before they start practicing bad habits is really the key. And it's the same with training behavior, right? So I can put in little moments where I can observe my dog with my training.

So if I'm working on something like pivoting, for example, I can incorporate some reset toss treats. So I'll throw a treat out, reset my dog. And again, I can observe how long does it take for them to come back? What are they like when they come back? And I can watch for those symptoms of early frustration there versus seeing it in the behavior itself. And I can end it before it happens in that behavior and becomes a bad habit. So you have a class and all this coming up in August. Do you want to just share a little bit more about the class specifically? What will the class cover and how you'll approach the sport? Yeah. So we're going to be doing a monitoring obedience class in August. It's very, very exciting. It's my very first time teaching monitoring in this type of format. We are going to be covering all of the obedience exercises. So the ones I listed before, but it's going to be, I'm going to try to do a train at the point you're at. And so if you need to work on foundation, like pivot work or choose to heal, that sort of thing, we're definitely going to have you guys work at that point. But if you're past that and you have a really nice heal, we're going to start introducing those environmental challenges to it. And same with position changes and all that stuff. So it's going to be kind of a train where you're at. And we try to provide as much information about those exercises as possible so that everybody can kind of get something out of the class as far as that goes. And then we're going to be working a lot on environmental stuff and working around distractions for sure. I'm curious to see, because I know that you do all sorts of stuff around that for your own dogs. So are there any skills? I know you said you could kind of start where you're at, but are there any skills that dog handlers do need before signing up? You know, kind of who's a good fit? I think the more you have, as far as a handle on the obedience exercises, so the more you have your heal developed and your position changes done and your retrieve done, the more you're going to get out of the class. So if you spend the whole time working on your retrieve, for example, because you don't have one, well, then at that point, it's probably better off to take a retrieve class itself versus taking the monitoring class just to focus on that, if that makes sense. So it's better to kind of go into it with some behaviors already intact so that you can focus on the monitoring aspect of it versus training those behaviors. But that being said, if you come into it and you're like, I don't really have a heal.

Well, we can definitely focus on training that and then slowly introduce the monitoring stuff to it. Good stuff. I couldn't let you go without asking what the craziest monitoring setup is that you've seen or trained with. I know you've done some fun stuff. So can you share some of the quirky setups? I think I'm going to have to do it because my memory is not that great, unfortunately. But so every trial has a theme for one. And so it's always kind of cool. I'll give you two examples. So some clubs go all out with our themes. Like we really like the themes. We really have a lot of fun with them. Our last trial, it was right in the beginning of the pandemic. So like right before the pandemic hit and we did an indoor trial. And so we're like, oh, we can do an indoor trial. That means we can control things like lighting. And so we did a laser tag theme. And so the decoys had guns, laser tag guns. We had lights up. We had a really cool, my club went all out. Evolution Working Dog Club went all out with the decorations. It was really cool. And then the judge led us for like the protection exercises, turn the lights half off. And so the dog could still see you. It was still safe. But it really gave it a really cool laser tag feel. So that was really fun. But as far as like training challenges go, this last trial I went to up in Minnesota, Lisa Geller was the judge. And it was level three on Sunday. And the level three is where you see all the crazy stuff come out. Like that is like the top notch. Like, oh my goodness, this is what we're training for, right? And then all the other levels are kind of like easier versions of that level three trial. And so for the defensive handler, which is where the dog stays with the handler, and then the decoys bring them through a scenario with different distractions. And then the dog can't bite until the decoy hits the handler, right? So it was Jake Schneider and his dog Luda going for their level three. And they had just gotten their level two the day before. And so they go through this defensive handler scenario. And Lisa had a volunteer sitting with a spray gun, a spray nozzle on a hose, like a spray nozzle on a hose full blast. And every time Luda and Jake walked by, she was supposed to spray this dog out of nowhere. And Luda at first was like, what the heck? This is the weirdest thing. And then he was totally fine. And it was like 90 degrees. So, you know, he was getting cooled down at the same time. So it's really a good thing for the safety of the dog to have that water aspect. But it was a really hard one because it wasn't just like a sprinkler or anything like that.

But it was just like this random jet of stream water coming out. And so he passed. He did great. He got, I think, full points on the defensive handler. And it was really, really a great showing. That's so crazy. I mean, that's not something I would think to train for. That's for sure. No. Yeah. I went home and I trained for that right after. Oh, man. All right. So last question. What's something that you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? Oh, I always try to come up with something for you for this. I think the biggest thing is we've recently had a really good discussion on engagement and acclimation, that sort of thing. And I think the biggest thing I've been reminding of is, yes, let your dog acclimate, but make sure it's in a patterned way and make sure that it's kind of fixed into a certain spot. And then after they're acclimated, getting them to work and making sure that they're practicing engagement rather than disconnection is a huge thing. And I think we need to kind of remember that while we give our dogs that ability to acclimate and get comfortable with their environment. But that practice makes perfect. And so I want my dogs really practicing, staying engaged with me. And so I have to make sure I set up as much as possible that they are able to do that versus having them check out halfway in between a session and that sort of thing. So really putting more of that engagement on me and making sure I'm setting my dog up for success. All right. And that is a great thing to remember kind of as we all head off for today. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me. And I hope everybody likes Mondio and joins us because it's going to be a great class. It sounds like it. And thank you to all our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Julie Daniels to talk about teaching our dogs self-control. 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 bensounds.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in. Happy training. Music.