E126: 앤 스모라도(Ann Smorado) - "링에 들어갈 준비가 되었나요?"

2:54

I will keep my fingers crossed and I'll look forward to puppy pictures. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. You got Miles, you got into puppy classes. Is that how you originally got into dog training? Kind of at what point in that process did it go from just training to like wanting to compete and kind of get into sports? Yeah. Miles was my first dog. Dogs were not in my life growing up. My mother, I don't think it was that she didn't like dogs. She just didn't know what to do with them. So back in those days, it wasn't like in the 60s. I mean, the way you train a dog was with a rolled up newspaper. So my mom wasn't into that. So that just wasn't, you know, we just didn't have them. But my stepdaughter got a puppy, Bailey, a month before she got her first house. So that means puppy lived with us. And that's when I discovered that, you know, I could train a dog with rewards, not punishment. And I just fell in love with that dog. And I cried when he moved out, even though he was only moving seven miles down the street and I could see him whenever I wanted. And but so it was a few years later that I got Miles, my first dog. And I was admittedly a little worried that maybe Bailey was just an amazing dog and that my ability to train him to go potty outside was an anomaly. So I, you know, wanted to do everything right. So I had Miles enrolled in puppy class before I even brought him home. And so I dutifully did all my homework. You know, we went to class every Saturday and I did my homework and puppy class led to doggy teenager class, which led to basic obedience class. And by then I knew I really enjoyed the training process and I just wanted to keep going, you know. And so I enrolled him in a rally class. And we did that. And then I got promoted to the competition rally class. And one of the first weeks, you know, the instructor and my classmates had all been at a rally trial the weekend before. And one of them had gotten the title and, you know, they urged her to bring in the ribbon, you know, for show and tell. And she brought in that ribbon and I was like, oh, I want one of those. I mean, I was like drooling, I think. And so, you know, and then, you know, like we went on to go on and we did we did a lot of rally. I did a lot of rally with Miles, but he also went on and he got a utility dog title and a mock. So I had a lot of fun with him. Anyway, and of course, I wanted to do it again. So that's when I went looking for Hartley. Gotcha. So it sounds like you kind of started off pretty much in the positive training camp. So were you always just basically a positive trainer? Yeah, pretty much.

5:51

Yeah, I was, you know, when I got Miles, obviously I didn't know enough about dog training to know about training philosophy. You know, I just thought you just go and you did what, you know, what the instructors told you to do. I will tell you a funny story, though. I had always, you know, was kind of hesitant to get a dog because I'd see dogs, I'd like them. And I always thought that there was this icky training period you had to go through that wasn't much fun until you could get a good dog you could enjoy. You know, and when I took Miles to that first puppy class, I remember the instructor standing there telling us, you know, if your dog does, and I don't even remember what the thing was she was talking about, but okay, shoes up, but just for sake of example, if your dog, shoes up your shoe. She says, you take a newspaper and you roll it up real tight and you hold it up like this. I know nobody can see because I'm holding my hand up in the air. You hold it like this and I'm thinking to myself, my heart's going, oh my God, oh no, here it comes. And then she says, you take that newspaper and you whack yourself on the head. And I said, oh, I can do that. It was so relieved, you know, and the point being, well, you know, you left your shoes laying around where the puppy can get them. So it's your fault your shoes got chewed up. But so, yeah, I was, I was very lucky that the places that I went were generally reward based. They were, I mean, if you could categorize them, they were probably balanced, but definitely the emphasis was on, you know, using, you know, rewards for training. I will say that when I got into the competition rally class, the instructor there was really ahead of the curve at that time, which is probably 2007. And she's probably one of the few people around then who, like, thought about the dog's emotional state in training and thought about how what you're doing impacts the relationship between the dog and handler. And she, you know, quickly went from instructor to mentor because she referred me off to a different instructor when she decided she didn't have anything else she could teach me, which she was wrong. But she became my mentor. And, you know, we've since become very good friends and we still, we still train dogs together. But over the years, she always just kind of quietly and gently, you know, guided me, you know, in, in the right direction, you know. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's been really good. So my next question here for you is, I'd love to just kind of just describe your training philosophy these days.

8:33

And, you know, kind of on the, on the heels of that awesome story there, I'm kind of curious to see how else you can, you can kind of flesh that out for us. You know, describe your training philosophy. Isn't that a funny, isn't that a funny conversation people have a lot? Like, how do you, like, what do you name it? Like, nothing really fits, you know. But, yeah, certainly it would be reward-based. And I guess my philosophy is in dog training or when I'm training my dogs or my students are in their classes is, you know, especially for dog sports. I mean, this for me is recreation. You know, and I train dogs because I enjoy it and it's fun. And the only way it's fun for me is if my teammate, which in this case is my dog, is also enjoying himself. And, you know, that's what it's got to be, you know, or I don't want to do it. You know, so, and I always keep that in mind when I'm teaching my students in class. It's like we want the dogs to be enjoying themselves and enjoying the training process, you know. And if you are getting ready for competition, you think about the amount of time you're competing compared to the amount of time you're training your dog and the amount of time you're living with your dog. I mean, what is that? A one one-hundredth of a, I can't even imagine what percentage of that time is. It's so small, you know. So, so, if it's not an enjoyable process for everybody involved, then, you know, why do it? It might be. Yeah. So. So how does kind of that approach, you know, impact when you start looking at, you know, preparing your dog for the ring? Like what is that? Like how does that kind of fit into kind of what you're teaching for FDSA this term, right? Like prepping for the ring and getting things ready to actually, you know, compete your dog. Well, it does have a big impact. And if both halves of the team aren't feeling good about what's going on and aren't enjoying themselves, then I don't think either half is having a good time. Right. And I have found that if my dog, and I think this is true for most dogs, most dogs want to know what to expect. They, they are happier and they're happy and they're confident. If they understand what's going on, they know what to expect. And, you know, and then everybody's happier. Doesn't mean they won't make any mistakes. You know, there's a difference between happy and confident and, you know, being perfect. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm just being happy and confident. So, you know, and that's where this, all this thorough trial preparation, you know, comes into play.

11:26

So if there's a, if there's gaps in that preparation and then the dog's faced with things or the handler's faced with things, the team's hand faced with things that they aren't prepared for, that creates, you know, anxiety and worry. And it's just not fun. And the analogy I like to use is that I think most people can understand is like, think about a time in school, like when we were in school and like, I was a pretty decent student. I wasn't the best student. I was the top of my class, but I was a good student. And when it came to time to take exams, you know, if I was really well prepared for that exam, when it came time for exam day, I would walk into that classroom to take the exam. I'm feeling pretty confident. I mean, if, if I wanted to pass, I might be a little nervous because, you know, I didn't want to forget something and I wanted to get a good grade, but I feel pretty good about it. But there were definitely times when I wasn't so well prepared for those exams and exam day would come and I would just walk in that room with this pit, this, this lead ball in my stomach. You know, I was just hoping that the sun and the moon and the stars would align so that the professor only put questions on that test that I would know. And that didn't feel good. And I think the same is, I think, I think showing dogs is kind of the same thing. You know, if you're really well prepared, you walk in the ring going, you know, we've got all the skills to do this and, you know, we're going to be okay. You know, doesn't mean we're going to win. Doesn't mean we're going to qualify, but we're going to feel okay. Versus when you go in and you're like, oh, I hope my dog does it. Or, I don't know, or I hope there's, you know, not this whatever sign, you know, in reality or whatever it is, you know, if things aren't, I think, I think if the handler feels better, then the dog feels better. And it's just. Makes everything go better. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and when, you know, when you're not prepared, it's just not fun. So that kind of dig into that not prepared piece a little bit more. Are there, you know, common mistakes that folks make that kind of lead them to be not prepared? You know, what can listeners do to make sure they don't, they don't end up in that position, right? Take my class. No, all kidding aside, a lot of, there's a lot of skills I think get overlooked and not because handlers don't think they're important. I think because they forget about them or there's, there's so many things you need to do to prepare your dog, you know, for the ring.

14:00

And, you know, we just forget certain things and overlook it. It's just so, it's easy to happen. Some of the things I think that often get overlooked are things like planning your warmup strategy. Like, like how, how far in advance before you go in the ring do you need to get your dog out? And what are you going to do to warm them up so he's not overly warmed up or, you know, exhausted when you go in the ring? Or what if there's a delay in the ring? You know, what if, what if all of a sudden, you know, you go in and you're all set up and they aren't ready for you? And you're just, maybe the judge decides another sandbag needs to be added to the tunnel or, you know, the timer's broken or, or the steward that was supposed to put your articles out is nowhere to be found. I mean, you know, these things happen. And so, and if you don't have a plan, you know, you're not going to know what to do. And then, you know, your dog gets confused. And so I think it's things like that we cover in the class that are, that are often overlooked. If you think about them and sort of have a plan for them and you practice them, then you're going to be a lot better off. So I know one of the things that you kind of mentioned in the syllabus is crating. Can you just talk a little bit about how much you get into that in the class? What do you, what are you talking about when it comes to crating and, and ring prep? So when I was thinking about this class and I was, you know, putting the syllabus and the outline together, I asked a lot of, you know, friends that, that I compete with. And I even asked on the alumni page, you know, when, you know, when you were getting ready to try out, you know, go to your first competition, what is one thing you wish you had known? And a real common answer was, I wish I would have known about crating or that I needed to, you know, crate my dog. So I definitely wanted to include that in the class. I started to write about it and it was really getting bigger than life. And so, so really this lecture is really for, I have a, I have a handful of lectures that are identified as being for the newcomer. So they are targeted for people who've never competed before. And this is one of those lectures. And really the lecture is just to talk about the reality that at any dog competition, you're going to get there and there's going to be waiting. You know, you're, you know, that's just unavoidable. And that, that whole process will be a lot easier and more comfortable if, you know, the dog that you're getting ready to compete is comfortable resting in a crate and relaxing.

16:41

And if they haven't been in a crate in a long time, maybe since they're a puppy or if they've never been in a crate, now would be a good time to start, you know, doing that with them a little bit, you know, at home or wherever, you know, because I mean, I really try when I'm, when I'm at a trial and we've got some, the novice classes coming. I mean, I can usually tell, you know, when someone's new, you know, and I, and I try to talk to them and help them. And I've definitely, you know, come across many people that are there, you know, walking around, you know, the trial area with their dog on a leash all day. And, you know, the dog's never been in a crate before. And, you know, it's hard because by the time they get in the ring, the dog's exhausted mentally. You know, so, yeah, so I think it's important for, you know, newbies to think about and prepare their dog for. But I don't get deep into the weeds on if you have a dog who's, you know, doesn't like the crate and is noisy in the crate and working through crate issues. Gotcha. Yeah, that was going to be my next question is whether or not you kind of get into how to problem solve some of that stuff. Yeah, I mean, if someone is, you know, one of the gold students is having some issues with crating. Of course, I've got suggestions to try to help them with it. But if there's dogs with really difficult crating issues, that's really beyond the scope of this class. Can you talk just a little more generally then about what the class does cover? Maybe who would be a good fit to take it? There's three big things, main things we're going to do in this class is we're going to work on generalization, reducing reinforcers and proofing. So those those lectures come out right at the very, very beginning. So hopefully at the end of class, students will have had their dog at six different new places to train. They're well on their way on their strategy or of for reducing reinforcers for the trial environment. And they've done quite a bit of proofing. And then in addition, each week, I'm going to release, you know, a couple lectures on skills that I call mortar skills or mortar lectures, because they are all those things that are the glue that holds everything else together. So we're all really good at, you know, if we've trialed before anyway, if it's not our first competition dog, we're all really good at laying a good foundation, you know, in fact, more than half of like, I think on the FENSI schedule this this term, the biggest category is foundations. So, you know, that message that's out there.

19:16

And of course, everyone's really good about training the skills that are going to be judged. So if you're doing obedience, you know, people work real hard on healing. And if you're doing agility, people work real hard on weaves and good contact behavior. And in reality, you're learning the signs. So I kind of consider all of those things, the bricks, the bricks. So these lectures I'm going to be releasing every week are what I call the mortar lectures, because they're what hold everything together. And so that's where we're going to work on things like the warm up routines and entering the ring, exiting the ring. What do you do for delays? It's people talking to you while you're working with your dog and, you know, being able to answer their questions without disconnecting or losing that connection with your dog. And, you know, just all kinds of things that people kind of forget about. To answer your question is, who is it for? Sure. It is for anyone who's, you know, preparing or thinking about preparing their dog for competition and is looking for some structure and accountability in their trial prep. But it's also for the newcomer who's, you know, never trialed before, because I do have a handful of lectures that are targeted to them, which are, you know, how do you find a trial? How do you find a match? How do you read the judging program? So, you know, you have a general idea of when your class is so you don't show up at eight o'clock in the morning for a class that doesn't start till three in the afternoon. You know, things like that, you know, that, you know, you don't know unless somebody helps you with them. So I know you mentioned before I hit record that you're also going to kind of talk about like what to do when you go to a B match or what to do when you kind of go to those prep type things. Right. So do you want to just mention that kind of briefly? Because I thought that was kind of interesting what you shared before I hit record. Yeah. For people who are lucky enough to be able to get to matches and run throughs, as I already mentioned, I have some optional lectures on how to find them because things like, you know, matches and run throughs are really hard to find if you don't know where to look. You know, like if you're not already in the dog world, it's not something you can Google and find, you know, about that for the newcomers. But then I have a separate lecture that's about at the match or run through.

21:34

And really what I talk about there is, you know, that is your chance to get your dog in the quote unquote, I'm doing the air quotes with my little fingers, competition environment, you know, as similar as you can get without actually being in a competition environment. And, you know, to practice with your dog. And the big thing I stress there is that is your time to train your dog and do the things that, you know, you feel you need to do to train your dog in there. You don't necessarily have to do, you know, run the course in order or, you know, if it's really do the course in order. And certainly in obedience, you know, you don't have to do all the exercises in order. You work on, you know, I encourage people to work on what they want. And number one, most important is make sure the dog enjoys his time in that ring and feels like a superstar when he's in there. I think that's super important. It matches for people to do. And that's, you know, what I'm going to be looking for. If there was, you know, one key lesson that you could share with dog sport handlers about prepping for competition, kind of drill it all down, pick one piece of advice, what would it be? When you're working at your trial preparation and, you know, believe what your dog's telling you in terms of their readiness. So if you can, you know, really be objective on what you're seeing with your dog and, you know, when you go to a match and just believe them. And if they tell you they're ready, you know, yeah, believe them and, you know, enter your trial and feel good about it. But if they're telling you you're not ready, believe them then too. And that's really hard for handlers to do if they've got their heart set on a certain target, you know, trial, especially if they're in an area where there aren't very many trials. Like, you know, gosh, if my dog's not ready for this October trial, I'm going to have to wait till next October or a whole year, you know. But the piece of advice I would say is if they're telling you they're not ready yet, believe them. I like that. Yeah. So I've got three more questions here that I ask folks every time when it's their first time on the podcast. I'm sure you've heard them lots. So what's the dog-related accomplishment that you're proudest of? I am proudest of putting that utility dog title on my novice-8 dog, Miles. Not just because utility is hard and he was my novice-8 dog, even though that's true. But, you know, back then, I just remember there was just a lot of negative chitter-chatter about utility. Not that anyone was trying to discourage me.

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In fact, I didn't even tell anybody I was thinking about utility because I was afraid they'd laugh at me. So that was like my dirty little secret. Aw. In fact, I didn't tell my instructor until after he got his CDX. And I was afraid to tell her I wanted to do that. I was afraid she'd laugh at me. But she didn't. You know, she said, OK, can you get to class, you know, 15 minutes early every week and I'll help you with articles. So, you know, she didn't laugh at me, even though I was afraid she was. But utility was like this enigma. It was like for only the top handler trainers and only for the special dogs. And, you know, it wasn't for the rest of us mere mortals. And so I'm just proud that I was brave enough to continue on with that, despite all that kind of chitter-chatter that was kind of floating around, you know, in the world around me. I like that. And I mean, what a poignant, like, point there about just like, OK, I didn't tell anybody because I was – I didn't expect that they'd think I could do it. And then you did it. Yeah. I know. I know. I know. I was like, what? You think I can do utility? Yeah. I know. Yeah. And it's so awesome that you managed to get it with your first competition dog. I mean – It was. Yeah. We had it in seven tries, which was pretty – I was really proud of that. That's awesome. So my next one here for you is what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Oh, this one was easy. And I think someone else mentioned it on the podcast. And I heard it on one of these podcasts. And it was Amy Cook. Every time you train your dog, you're teaching them how to feel. I have kept that tucked away in the back of my mind ever since. And, you know, it's there when I'm working with my dogs. It's there when I'm, you know, with my students and their dogs. It's always there in my psyche now. So thank you, Amy Cook, for that. Aw. She'll like to hear that. That'll make it happen. Isn't she going to listen to this? She might. It's the last one. Who is somebody else in the dog world that you look up to? I had to think hard on this one because there's so many, Melissa, as you know. And I know everybody says that. And, you know, and of course, you know, Denise is there because if it weren't for her and this school, I wouldn't be, you know, half the dog trainer that I am today. Because this has just opened up such a world of so much learning opportunity. Like I could probably gush on and on and on about that. But I have really looked up to Petra Ford. She hit my radar early on. And she has labs. So she's got the same breed of dog I do.

27:12

And when she and Tyler accomplished so much, you know, winning the NOC and going to Crofts, you know, I was just would watch them and their videos and just go, wow. But then and this was just as luck would have it. When I went looking for Hartley, you know, the first breeder, I finally found a breeder. And she's like, well, I'm going to do this breeding for Petra Ford. And I was like, what? And so Hartley is a Tyler son. So, of course, she's stayed on my radar. But the reason I have looked up to her is she has really modeled for me idea, the importance of just always keeping an open mind and always looking for learning opportunities and to just keep learning. And if something's not working, you know, you just keep searching, keep learning, always keep that mind open. And for me. I have found. And I always want to just kind of keep that beginner's mind so that my mind is always open to continuing to learn, because I have just learned so much with both of my dogs. And I don't want to stop and, you know, keep the more I am able to keep my mind open and learn the better dog trainer, you know, I will I will be. I've actually had the chance to even apply that like a few times in the last six months or so or a year, you know, where now I've got a seasoned dog and I've had some, you know, training opportunities available to me that were even free. You know, like I didn't even like travel or spend any money for him. And I almost passed him off because I'm like, you know, my dog's six and a half. We're good. I, you know, I could spend that time. I don't know, doing something else, cleaning the house. Like who wants to do that? But in all three of those cases, I said, no, no, I could I might be able to learn something from that person. And I did. You know, I learned something very valuable from them. And so I just never want to shut my mind to anything. And that's, you know, that's probably that's really what I learned from her and that she's modeled so well for me. It's awesome. I'll have to make sure that she she hears that. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And this has been great. Oh, thank you. It's been a lot of fun. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Julie Simons to talk about keeping obedience fun. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast.

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Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. See you in the second half. See you in the second half. See you in the second half. Thank you.