E181: 앤디 하트만(Andy Hartman) - "USDAA@Home 프로그램"

That got me started. Uh, then, um, I lost the German shepherds within three weeks of one another. And, and my veterinarian at the time said, before you get another dog, I'd like you to come and see my breed of dogs. And she happened to have Belgian Tiberian. So she took me to a Belgian Tiberian regional specialty. And so I got to see all these cool dogs doing this really neat sport called agility. So, uh, then I started looking for Belgian Tiberian, which, uh, the breeders in that breed are very particular. Um, and it's probably easier to adopt a child than it is a turf, but everything worked out and found a really nice dog. And then my vet and her husband lived in the country and they had a pole barn and they did agility training on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons. And so, yeah, I'll try it. Next thing you know, I'm doing dog agility training. And, you know, you meet a dozen people who will, you know, have the same passion for dogs that you do. Uh, it started out social and then one day somebody goes, it's time for you to go to a trial. And so they, they helped me get going and went to the trial and had a, had a, you know, I was hooked. It, it, uh, I can remember that first run with Taz. He did great. Uh, we were in third, we, we took third place only because we slid off the table. And then it was another six months before I queued at another trial, you know, agility has that way. It's a humbling sport. Um, you know, if, if you have a fragile ego, uh, this probably isn't the sport for you because, um, there isn't a way to NQ in this sport that I haven't done multiple times, but I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. I mean, you've kind of made it. Your work as well as your, uh, your play. So, uh, so I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with USDA, but for those who aren't, can you share just a little bit of kind of background about what it is? Would you guys do? So, um, Ken Tosh started USDA, uh, back in, in 1986 and he'd been over to a dog show at Crufts and they were doing a demonstration sport, which was agility. Um, and so he came back from that and, uh, really liked it. And, you know, they started doing it in it back in the early days, it was more, more doing demonstrations, people getting together. Um, and then there wasn't, you couldn't go out and buy a set of agility equipment. You had to make everything. So, um, that's kind of how it got started. And then in 1988, we had the first Grand Prix of dog agility. Um, and that has grown into Sino Sport World Games, which, uh, we've held every year since, except for this year, unfortunately with COVID-19.

Um, we had to cancel Sino Sport along with the national titling championship. So USDA, uh, if, if you take a look through our rule book and, uh, other documentation, there's always a reason for what was done in the early days with USDA. It wasn't just, uh, slapped together. There's a lot of thought that's gone behind it, a lot of philosophy, um, and still is today. So as the VP, what does that, what does that look like? What do you do? Oh man. Um, when you, when you work for a small company, you, you wear all kinds of hats. I manage the website to a degree, uh, put content up. Um, I, I look at sites for Sino Sport and, uh, other. Uh, other events. Um, it can help in the planning of those events. Um, you know, day to day right now with at home for a while, I was handling all of the, uh, customer service email that would come through and not gotten some help with that. Um, so, but I'm still spending a lot of time, uh, prepping the courses. We have a number of judges that design courses. Uh, we've got a nice review process for looking at them, but to be honest with you, the hardest part about at home and preparing it is the briefings. Because unlike a trial where you're there and if somebody answers, asks a question, it's easy for you to answer. Uh, with at home, we have to anticipate the, try to anticipate the questions and write the briefing as clearly as we can. Um, sometimes, uh, uh, we think we've done a good job, but we've, we've, you know, we've created some doubt. And so then you get people writing in and we answer those. But, uh, every week we try to get better and better, uh, with USDAA at home. Awesome. So kind of talking about that or mentioning that, um, I'd love to talk about it a little more. Can you, can you share kind of the basics, what it is, you know, for those who haven't heard about it and then kind of how it works? Well, necessity is the mother of invention. So back in March, I can remember this distinctly. I'd flown out to Phoenix for the wild west regional. This is just when COVID was heating up and flying back home. Um, I can remember thinking in the airplane, what are we going to do? Because, um, I was concerned that we would have, uh, events that would cancel. And I think, I think back then, I think we all kind of had this impression that things would slow down for a month or two and then we'd be right back. You know, we, we would get back to normal and, um, you know, it wasn't that many weeks into it when it was obvious that wasn't going to happen. Well, when you're an event driven company and you have no events, uh, that's not a good thing.

So, uh, we, we put our brains together, um, and over about an eight week period of time, uh, we, we worked seven days a week. It was a team effort. Um, and we came up with the idea of doing the trialing, finding a way for people to be able to trial in their backyard where they could do it on their time schedule, um, and, and would not be affected by COVID in their backyard. So, um, it turned out that, that there was a real need for that. Um, the amount of email, um, that we've gotten where people will say things like, thank you so much for doing USDA at home. You brought joy back into my life. Um, you've got me motivated again to work with my dogs. Um, it is so rewarding when you get those email and realize that you had a very positive impact on people's lives, uh, above and beyond the business side of things. It's just been really good. And it's been good for us. Um, we've learned a lot as, as we've done this. So, you know, you get, you get email from people who don't live anywhere near a trial who now can do agility trials in their backyard. And, uh, you get people who have an aggressive dog who can trial in agility. You've got people who have timid dogs and let's face it. There's some people that don't enjoy being in crowds themselves who can now participate in the sport. Uh, so I think it, it, uh, we, we, it, it's filling a real need out there, uh, for people. When did you guys officially start offering them? Do you remember? Um, back in May, I believe. Uh, I, I can look it up if you ask me another question. I should, I should have, I should have anticipated that one. No, no, that's fine. Um, I was just curious how, uh, how long it's been kind of running now and kind of what, what kind of folks you've seen coming through, but, uh, but that's okay. I'd love to just kind of dig a little deeper into kind of some of, you know, why you guys chose to create the program. Obviously the why now is pretty obvious. Um, and then some of the nitty gritty. So, um, you know, as we went, we, we sort of envisioned that maybe we just put, um, exercises out there because one of the things about the, our titling program, USDA has a tournament program, you know, steeplechase, Grand Prix, team, uh, master's challenge, biathlon. We also have the titling side of things. Um, and, and tournament is more head to head competition. Titling is, uh, uh, all about skill sets and showing that you've met, um, you've met the standard for those skill sets. So at first we thought about, well, we'll, we'll offer training for, for people. And so the first set that came out, uh, was not, there were no cues or anything like that

involved. It was just training and we got a good response. Um, and then we realized that titling, allowing people to earn some cues would be a good thing, but we wanted to keep that element of skill sets involved. Um, and, and of course we're, we're not doing full size courses. We're doing courses anywhere from 40 by 60, uh, uh, 50 by 60, 50 by 70 and 60 by eight. So it's a different design that you're coming up with. You can't just, it's, uh, it takes a little bit more work than when you're doing it on a hundred by a hundred and you have the room to do it. Um, so then we decided that, uh, it needed two modules. You couldn't just go out and do one and earn that cue. You needed to do two. Um, because if you don't have a standard in place, if, if there isn't a challenge for people to do it, uh, people won't do it for very long. Um, and so, uh, USDA, we're all about standards. So, um, we, we, we looked at some of the things and we realized right from the bat, right from the get go, um, let's let people, you know what you, you can do it a number of times. We're not going to say you can only run it once. Who's going to police that? So let's, let's, let's just let people train on it. Um, and let's see how they do. And it allows us from a course design standpoint, maybe to, to, to make things a little bit more challenging than you would see, for instance, at the starters or advanced level or masters at a show where you only have one chance to do it. Um, and so, uh, people start training and they're building their skillset. So I think we all went in that regard. And then as we progressed, you'll notice if you look at some of the courses now, the first module sometimes, uh, is more of a training module where we have a specific skillset that we're trying to, to emphasize. And then the second module is more of the full course. So, um, it, it's been going good. We get lots of customer feedback. We listen to that customer feedback each week. Every day we have a staff meeting. We talk about those things in the staff meeting. Um, and you know, we don't sit back on our laurels. It's, it's a continuous process improvement. We're going to make this thing better each and every week. That's awesome. I love that. And I love that you guys are working so hard to kind of, um, incorporate that feedback as you go. I mean, that's so important for something like this, especially, I mean, it's kind of a new world out there, right? It is. Again, I think we're all learning it each week when we go through this process. Um, and, uh, and our, our customers, our competitors have been so good, um, with their feedback and

so positive and so supportive. Um, again, the amount of, um, of people who thank us for doing this, um, and hope that it will continue. And I'm here to say it will continue. Um, I, I, I think at home will be with us even when we get back to a more normal. Um, with that said, we're very mindful. We, we do not want to cannibalize our regular events and our groups entries. Um, so I think it'll, I think it'll modify with time. I think there'll come a point in time where at home will become its own program, um, and maybe have a different titling structure. But, you know, we'll have to see across that bridge when we get there. But for right now, people are earning regular titling cues, um, uh, improving their skill sets through the courses that we offer. Um, and so it's a good thing. Yeah. Kind of, kind of to dig a little more into just like the technically how it works, right? So how often are you guys releasing new courses and how often can people kind of work through things and kind of how do those bits and pieces work? So, so right now we offer new courses every week and we give people two weeks to run those courses, um, because lots of people are doing it outside, whether because weather plays into it. Uh, so we like to give people like two weekends to be able to do it. Um, and then once, once the event closes, then we give people an additional 24 hours to upload their results. People log into USDAA at home, uh, with their system email and one of their dog's registration numbers. Doesn't matter which one, because the system will recognize them. And from their dashboard, they can go and look at the event requirements and take a look at, at, at the events that are open for enrollment and pick the events they want. They can drop those into a shopping cart. Um, and then check out, uh, each one of our, uh, events contains two modules. You have to do both modules cleanly in order to earn a queue. Um, and we charge $12 for that event. Um, once that's done, uh, they can download the maps, uh, course maps, and we give them a regular course map. And then we give them a setup course map that shows the coordinates. So if you laid, if you laid down a tape measure, uh, you could step off just like we do at a lot of, a lot of regular trials and set up your equipment. So then once you set this up, you have to video it because we want, we're going to judge it. So, uh, we give suggested camera positions on the course maps, but we realize not everyone's yard is the same. Uh, your 40 by, by 60 or 50 by 60 yard may be just slightly different than my 50 by 60 yard.

So we give people, we allow slight adjustments as long as you maintain, uh, the flow and the challenge of the course. And we realize that that camera position we suggested might not work in your case. So then we just ask you, we want to see you and your dog perform each obstacle. And of course, if there's contacts, we want to be able to see the down contact, uh, performance. So, so people, so people run that run. Okay. Now they come back home and, uh, they log into their dashboard. It'll show them on the events that they're currently enrolled in. They click on the event they want to work on and it's an accordion and it'll drop down and you'll see course one and course two. And next to it, it'll say submit results. So you click on submit results and it'll come up. It'll tell you who the dog is. Um, and you're going to enter the actual height you ran your dog at, uh, because that's how we know whether to give you a championship cue, a performance cue, or if your dog is old enough, a veterans cue. Uh, then you're going to, you're going to give us the time of your run. How long did it take your score? And then with your video, you take your video and you're going to get either a YouTube or Vimeo account and upload your, your video there. And then take that link and paste it in. Um, then you hit submit and that uploads into our system. And then you're going to go back and repeat and do the second module. Um, and on our end, once an event closes, then we have a group of judges, uh, that we assign the judging duties to. Um, and so they go in and, you know, I, I remember when we first did this, I mean, I got goosebumps watching people run their dogs in their backyard. I mean, it's really inspiring. Um, people, uh, are hooting and hollering as if they're at a regular trial in a lot of cases. It's just, it, it, it's really a neat thing. Um, so you, you, uh, so the judge, when you go in, you have a screening and you see all of the runs, um, and you're either going to say yes or no, which means pass or you did not pass. And right there, they can click on the course map and, and, uh, so they have it on the screen so they know what the course is, uh, or they can even go and just download all the documents associated with that course. So they don't have to spend time going back to the site to find it. Um, and then you judge. And when everyone uses the same camera angle, it goes pretty fast. And then you get somebody, then you get somebody that uses, you know, 180 degree different camera angle. Cause they had to, and then it's like, you gotta think about it a little bit more.

Our judges who are doing the judging do a great job for us. Um, and I think they enjoy doing it, uh, because we haven't had anyone quit yet. So, uh, that's a good time. Definitely. I mean, you know, being able to do something like that from home is when it's already something that you've chosen to do. Right. When it requires traveling and showing up at trials and a whole day's travel sometimes and whatever else, I'm sure that's kind of nice for them too. So we, we plan, we plan ahead. Um, uh, originally we would, we would offer one of each class type standard jumpers, gamblers and snooker. Um, and about the last three or four weeks we've gone to a, uh, for instance, this week, we're going to offer, um, gamblers and jumpers two different courses though, for each two different ring sizes, trying to accommodate more people. Um, and then the following week we'll do standard and snooker again, each class type and two different ring sizes, trying to appeal to as many people as we can. Um, for those who have different yard sizes and things like that, right? Correct. Um, and we've also, uh, we've, we've, this month we started to offer combined relay because people need relay cues in order to advance for titles. And so, uh, people have, have gotten, uh, I think we've offered three combined relays so far, uh, with more to come. So, um, and that's been really popular and with the combined relay, everyone, there's one course and it's set at the advanced level. It's judged by advanced rules and you can pair a starter's dog with a master's dog, um, advanced with masters doesn't matter. Um, and it's two modules. So you're going to run both halves the first time through, you're going to run one half. And then the second one, you and your partner are going to switch and you're going to run opposite halves. So, um, and we share jumps because again, it's a smaller ring size. So, uh, any jumps that are shared, we, we have set at the lower dog's height. That's a, I mean, it sounds like you've kind of are really trying to work to make it as accessible for as many people as possible, even though, you know, obviously agility requires some equipment, but, uh, but like there's some good flexibility there. Well, and we allow things like, uh, you can use either winged or non-winged jumps. Um, and we've got a whole list of equipment substitutions that we allow. Some of the courses, sometimes for instance, in a standard, we'll have a dog walk. Uh, we might put in a, a, a jump A-frame as a substitution for that. Um, or a jump seesaw as a substitution for that. Um, sometimes we have two tunnels. Not everyone has two tunnels.

So a lot of times we'll allow a jump to be, uh, substituted for one of the, for one of the tunnels. Although we'll specify which tunnel that is generally on the course map. Mm-hmm. So you said you meant you're offering two different yard sizes or that, are they the same yard sizes kind of from week to week? What are the, like, what's the smallest space somebody could realistically compete with? 40 by 60. Okay. 40 by 60. Uh, we find the 50 by 60, somebody with a 40 by 60, you know, with slight adjustments can, can make a 50 by 60 work. Um, of course standard gets, you know, standard is hard to do on a small ring. So, uh, usually we'll see either 50 by 70 or 60 by 80 with the standard. Um, a lot of training facilities are, are offering these courses for people if they want to come in, um, and do it during the week. So, uh, sometimes people are doing it in their backyard. Sometimes they're going to a friend's house who has a little bit bigger yard. Um, so. Yeah. It's all been really good. Um, but much, much safer than a full, full blown trial for now, at least. Absolutely. I, you know what? I think people, uh, I, I think, uh, we as dog people are pretty responsible people. Um, and we have a lot of respect for one another. So. You, you kind of were talking a little bit earlier about the future of the program and that, uh, you know, you guys are definitely hoping to keep it around kind of long-term, but maybe it'll morph a little bit. Can you share a little more about that? Well, uh, you know, one of the things, again, it's one of those things. I'm, this is not set in stone. Just, just one of the thoughts is that maybe, uh, once regular trials come back, maybe if you're titling for regular titling, uh, cues, you go to a regular trial. Maybe at home becomes its own program. We're now, if you do at home, you're going after at home titles. And that would allow us to come up with a different structure for at home. Um, then, then, uh, for instance, you'll notice we don't offer tournaments right now with at home. Um, however, that's going to change with the, uh, with the at home fall festival, uh, that's going to take place for the entire month of October. Uh, we will be, we will be offering tournament courses. Um, and we're working on getting guest judges to design some of the courses. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to have details coming out about it shortly. Um, we're just working out some of those last details. So that'll be really, really exciting. For those who kind of want those details when they're available, what's the best way for them to kind of follow everything going on

and stay up to date on the latest changes and updates and all that stuff? Um, we'll make an announcement definitely, uh, on usdaa.com. Uh, we'll make a news announcement. Um, and we, I'm sure we'll, we'll add something to the usdaa slash at home, uh, page as well on the, uh, on the beginning page. Awesome. Yeah, we'll get the word out there. We, we, we know people are chomping at the bit. Um, so we're working hard to finish up those details and get that information out. Anything else you kind of want to add about the program? I mean, I've got a couple more questions here for you, but anything else you want to add? You know, I'm, I'm thinking what's, what's one of the most unusual, uh, things that I've seen through the program. Um, there's a competitor in, in, uh, Denali, Alaska, the park that has a resort. And she and her friends do agility. And I got a picture showing the dog and the handler on the agility course. And over in the distance, there's a moose. In the field. So that was a little different. Um, that doesn't happen every day. Um, I just, I just want to say thank you to, to everyone who's participated. And we have gotten so many new people to come in and, and try USDA agility from other venues who've never done it before. Um, and it's just been, it's, it's been really good. Um, to the point where, uh, you know, I was talking with one of our groups and letting him know that we don't want to cannibalize, uh, entries when we get back to normal. We're very mindful of that. And, uh, her comment was, uh, I don't think you should change a thing because we are going to have more people at our trials because we've gotten people who haven't done USDA before to come and try it. Um, so I'd say to anyone out there, if you're itching to do agility, um, and, and, uh, you have any concerns about, uh, getting together with groups of people, give USDA at home a try. We'd love to have you come. If you've got questions, you can write us, uh, you can call us, uh, we're there to answer questions. We're there to help you with anything that we can. So, but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's done it. We can't, just can't thank you enough for all the good support, uh, for all the kind words. Um, it really, it really motivates us to keep working hard and keep it fresh and, uh, to keep improving it on a daily basis. So thank you everybody. Such a great, uh, kind of note to round things out on, but I do have three more questions here for you. So, um, I've got these three things. I usually ask people at the end of the call their first time on, uh, so the first one here

is just what's the dog related accomplishment that you're proudest of? Um, I had a border collie named zest and, uh, unfortunately zest got attacked, uh, several times, uh, at different training facilities and she became really spooky. Um, and I can remember the first agility trial, uh, the judge was wearing a hat and she just came unglued and I had to carry her off, off the field. And I, I worked really hard with zest and to overcome that. And we did. And she was a fantastic agility dog and, uh, just a wonderful partner. Um, so when I look, when I look across my career, that was probably the most satisfying thing, um, to be able to, um, pull that out and, uh, have, have so many good years with her. Um, I like that. What about training advice? So what's the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Um, two things. Um, the, uh, save a foot, lose a leg. In other words, um, uh, you, you know, follow through or you pay the price that your dog might not follow through on that obstacle. Um, I, I think that was, that's a really good little saying. Um, the, the other, and I get it from my wife, who's a really good dog trainer, um, is, you know, be consistent no matter what, what you do with your dog when it comes to training, be consistent. Um, and that takes a lot of work. It's not necessarily an easy thing to easy thing to do. By nature, humans are not very consistent. That's for sure. You know, we're not. And even when we train in our backyard, we're, then we go to a show and we're completely different and our mood is different. And, you know, the dog's looking at us like, what is going on? Absolutely. Um, last one here, who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? Well, I, you know, I, I, I, I look up to a lot of the people that started this sport off and that worked so hard and traveled all over the country going to the few events that were, that were out there. Um, but if I have to pick an individual, um, I would pick Stuart Maugh. Um, and I pick Stuart because Stuart has accomplished just about everything you can in the sport of agility. And yet he's always willing to help somebody out to give advice. And he's so humble and, uh, he has retired from the sport now. Uh, but when he and his wife, Patty were trialing, those two were a great example. Um, they've accomplished all these things and yet here they are volunteering at trials, helping out right along with everyone else. And I think, um, you know, it's so important if we didn't have volunteers in this sport, we couldn't do it. So, uh, so I've got a lot of respect and I look up to Stuart an awful lot. Excellent. All right.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Andy. It's been fantastic. It's been my pleasure, Melissa. Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed it. I can't believe it's over already. Um, and, and, uh, we only had, uh, one dog barking incident between us. And those were my dogs. And nobody has to know about that. We're going to get that little part out. Yeah, there you go. All good. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Deb Jones to talk about her new titling program offered in partnership with the FENZ Team Titling Program. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. They're 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 bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lange. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Today's show is brought to you by the FENZieoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoVoV