E127: 줄리 시몬스(Julie Symons) - "오비디언스와 함께하는 즐거움"

We've done a lot together, a lot of titles on our names, and this is just going to be kind of what bookends all that for us. Drack is about three and a half. And he is working in mainly nose work right now, but I'm actually finding he is pretty far along with my obedience training, and I'm actually getting a little excited about when I might enter him. Agility, we dabbled in as well with him. But I'm finding I can't do every sport with every dog. That's been a very recent realization with me. It's just becoming a little bit too much with three dogs. So my third dog that I just got unplanned, Moxie, who's 10 or 11 months old right now. She's great. She gets along great with the family. She's going to be my little agility star. I could tell already. She's going to be the one that I want to get back to what I had back in my heyday of agility training and trialing, and I'm very excited about that. She's also training pretty heavily in obedience and agility. Like I said, I can't just do one thing, and I think there's so much overlap with the sports that the skills are comparable and definitely benefit the other areas. So those, and they're all Belgians, I should have said. Savvy and Moxie are Belgian Trivurans, and Drac is my Belgian Malinois. And I kept trying to get a different breed, but it hasn't happened yet. So one of these days, I'll do something else. Landed somewhere and it's stuck, huh? Yeah, yeah. So what is it about competition obedience that you enjoy? Why play and compete in that sport in particular? Well, you know, I actually was thinking about this a lot recently because all those new sports out there, I mean, it's so easy to just want to go do these new sports that are maybe a little bit more intrinsically motivating, maybe don't require as many months and years of training. But I still have this love for the type of training and competition that obedience does. My first dog rival really showed me what was possible and the love that that still brings to me. But I'm so tempted by those other sports, dog diving, barn hunt, lure coursing. You know, they're tough to not want to go try because they're very fun with the dogs. But I like the accuracy that obedience brings. I like the I have really good camaraderie in our area in obedience trials. I don't find that stigma that some people talk about. I just like knowing what I'm going to expect when I go in the ring. You know, the routine that you're going to do. And it's just I was again, really was thinking about this the other day, how I think it's more just hanging on to a little bit what I experienced with my first dog and how much

I enjoyed it. So it's still it's still with me, you know, just the love and the reason why I like training those skills. So I think a lot of people kind of think of precision obedience of the precision that obedience requires. Excuse me. They kind of figure that all the precision must be pretty boring to train. You know, is that the case? Does it have to be boring? No, not at all. Um, ironically, the number one thing I train when I go into my my new building that I have is obedience. Um, I just do something short and fun and sweet because I know there's a kind of a long haul in the training with that sport. And, um, just training little bits of it is, is real fun. And it just, I don't know, I think it makes me a better trainer. So I just, I was, I was just ironic, but that's kind of the one thing I go and train in my building when I can train a lot of other things there. So here's a recent story. I have been working recently with Kamal on some healing and motivation work and boy, you know, it's really fun. I I'm, I'm having a blast, um, you know, trying different ways of training. And I was watching one of his videos recently of a young dog that's the same age of my Moxie and it was vibrant and up and precise as well. And fun. And my first thought was, wow, people just don't realize how fun we can make obedience. I mean, the dog wanted more Kamal was out of breath. I mean, it was just so fun to watch. Um, but I'm also drawn to the, you know, the, you know, the nerdy learning theory stuff. I mean, I could watch, you know, trainers who, you know, just really, um, shape everything. And, um, I mean, I could watch, you know, Hannah Brannigan's videos all the time about how, how, how clear her criteria is and how, how, what her rate of reinforcement is to build those little skills and how clear that is to the dog. Um, um, um, and they can excel at that minutia. Um, the precision can be really fun to train. So I don't ever want to people to think that I don't think that is fun. It is fun. It's training. Training should be fun. It's, it's, it's learning how to communicate with our dogs and reach them. And, and so that they understand what we want from them. Um, I mean, you can make it not fun if you, I guess you can make it not fun. Um, but I do think you truly do have to love the sport and we'll get into a little bit of it later. I think when I talk about my classes coming up, but, um, it is just, there's a joy to it. You know, you could really, really make it fun. So speaking of your classes, uh, your obedience started games classes on the schedule of this

session, which we're talking before the August session, and it'd be followed by your, uh, regular obedience games class in October. Can you just talk a little bit about the concept behind those classes, kind of what they are? Yeah. Um, so the concepts behind those classes are many, many years, many years ago that they were created, um, was to show that there was a way we could have more fun and put less pressure on ourselves with the training and showing when I was working toward my final points with my first stock rival, I let the joy go. I was so obsessed with, you know, getting those wins so I can get those points. And I wasn't having fun anymore and our scores were dropping and it was showing and I was feeling disappointed. And I'm sure that my dog picked up on that. Um, and it's a story that I share in both of those classes, how I was only showing in utility because that's where you can more easily get the points. And she was an older dog. So I didn't want to have to maintain all the skills across open and utility. And I did enter open on a whim thinking we'd never finish in open. Cause open is a very, very competitive class. Um, it wasn't in my mind, our best class, but it was our best run ever. We actually finished our, our arch in that class. I got a one 99 high in trial and it was in, I have it on video. Thank thankfully. And I was just purely relaxed and then having fun with my dog. And I wasn't like that when I was in the other ring utility ring, trying to get those final points. And it really, I really reflected a lot on that day because someday in that day didn't come where I wouldn't be able to walk in the ring with her again. And so I had to step back and say, what really was important. It wasn't the win. It wasn't the title. It was the relationship that we had. And that's all I needed. I didn't, we knew how to do the job. I just put too much pressure and I stressed myself out. Um, I mean, there was other factors going on in my life. I had a young child at home. And so I was leaving, you know, home and I felt guilty for that, but it was such a nice experience for me to have to realize how simply you can go into the ring and enjoy it and not bring in that stress. So I wanted to show that, you know, if we use a little bit less formality, less predictability, we could build that motivation and speed. Um, dogs like to move. And if we approach things as games, it really changes our picture and our view of the sport. You can think of a C, uh, of a, um, conditioned emotional response, so to speak. Like we, we, we can, we can view it as fun as well as a dog.

And, and, um, lastly, just to answer that question is I find that teaching skills are really the easy part. There is so much material out there, um, to, on how to teach skills. Um, but it's the building, um, it's building that motivation, that engagement, you know, that working relationship for the dog with the dog is hardest for most teams. So I want to focus on that part and not necessarily the precision of the skills, because if you get a motivated dog, the rest is going to fall right into place. So that was the premise and the concept behind, um, those classes. You kind of mentioned in passing, um, CER and the conditioned emotional response piece. And I was thinking when I was looking over the syllabus and kind of prepping some questions and stuff, that it really does feel like that's kind of what the class is about. It's taking all of those obedience skills and breaking out some of the bits and pieces in a fun way to kind of build that association for the dog of, oh, these are the fun games that we play that are, you know, they just have to obedience. Yeah. So I want to talk about the, um, the starter games class first. Can you tell me a little bit about the class itself? How is it structured? You know, what kind of games are we talking about? Also maybe how experienced does a dog have to be to, to join in? So what I found was when I did the original game, which I know we'll talk about a little more later. Um, I, the first week of that class, I did weekly, weekly games and just to get, you know, people primed and the people used to training a little bit every day. And the teams were pumped. People loved having something to do every day and the dogs were loving it. So what I did was I structured the obedience starter games because they would be able to be bite-sized pieces, um, to daily games. I went from starting with five and then as the class has progressed over the years, I was, you know, coming up with more games and I didn't want to remove anything. So I added, so we have six daily games. I do give a day off. Um, so we have six daily games and again, people really like it. And what I do is I, um, roll out one game the night before. So nobody gets to look ahead. So they get their, you know, their homework the night before they'll wake up in the morning and read it and they go off and they train. And there is just so much data and proof that, that a little bit of training every day will strengthen that bond with your dog. Um, you'll, you'll find your dog won't even leave you alone. And I really look forward to that training as well as you do. And it is probably the number one thing.

Think about it. I mean, if you do anything with your dog, um, fun and positive, they're going to enjoy that time with you. So that's the main premise is just to, uh, and I hear it every day with these people when they post their games, they're like, Oh my God, it's so fun. Oh my God, it's so fun. Wasn't anything hard, but they just were doing it every day. And it was so, so fun to see. It's like one of my favorite classes because just, I mean, people like knows were too, but there's something about obedience games where people just really, really light up, um, with these type of movement games and they're not putting a lot of pressure on themselves. And it's just, it's just, it's really, really fun. Can you talk a little more about the games themselves? Like what, what are we talking about? So there are a lot of, I mean, a lot of skills. There are so many, many skills and they'll learn how to put some behaviors on cues. They'll find value for heel position. Um, they'll learn how to, um, engage with toys and food and how to read hand signals. Um, you know, how to, to go straight ahead when you signal. To go over jumps, um, duration for stays, recalls, flying, uh, doing a circle around a cone value for handler scent. That's a new game I've added. Um, but most importantly, like I said earlier, they want to play with you. And that is one of the biggest, um, skills. Those are like just a few of the skills that they're going to get. I mean, you think about six times six, it's 36 games, 36 games. It's a lot. Can you, can you give us an example of one of them? And, you know, kind of talk us through the game and like how it would help build skills for a competition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So one of my favorite games is in week one, it's called Mark, Chase and Race. So it builds, you know, it's a bunch of skills. So, um, you put a tree on a target that's, you know, you can start it a little close 10, 15 feet away, and then you eventually build it up, you know, for the length of a ring. So you ensure that your dog can see it and you could point, um, give a word. You can, so you start, you start to develop a little bit of what they call a mark. So you're going to mark, um, with a verbal or with a hand for your dog to look forward and to eventually go forward. So you send your dog and they want to go, you can just say any word. I mean, I usually just say go because they see, you know, some, hopefully a helper's helping you or you can reset it and they'll know something's out there. So then they run to it and you chase them. And that's the hardest part that people forget to do because we're so formal and obedient.

We want to just stay there standing. So you, when you, yeah, so that removes them the formality. So you start chasing your dog to the tree. And then as they pick up the tree, you call them and you race away. So they chase you back. So it's building a little bit of a retrieve when you are running behind them. There's some pressure. And some people say, oh, my dog doesn't like that pressure behind them. And I said, well, better, it's better that it's you right now versus a judge. Who's going to come up behind your dog when you do front and they're going to look at how straight your front is. So it's a great way to build some of that, you know, moving fast, having pressure behind them and then doing a recall as you race away. And then you play with them when they get to you. So it's a really fun game and people really enjoy it. But it is kind of funny. The hardest thing for people to remember is to chase the dog after you let them go. They stay there like we're used to for obedience, you know, for like a recall or something. Right. That's one of the, it's a real, it's a real popular game. And I like that one a lot. How does the regular obedience games class kind of differ from the starter games class? Do students need to have that starter class if they want to play in the regular obedience games class? They don't need to have the starter games as a prerequisite. There is some overlap. So in the first week of the regular obedience games class, there's the daily games. So there is definitely some repeats. But also they can be up to notch in complexity for more advanced teams. The dogs would be a little bit further along, you know, for the more advanced games if they took the starter games class. So it's not a prerequisite at all. I actually find the two generally draw in different audiences. Like if somebody is taking starter games right now, they're generally pretty young dogs. I get dogs anywhere between, you know, six months to two years. I don't think they're quite ready for the obedience games because by the end of the class, they get pretty, pretty challenging. So it might be, you know, another year before, after they've done some more obedience, you know, formal, I guess you can call obedience training that the games would come back, you know, into their schedule as a good opportunity at that point. And the other difference with the regular obedience games class is it's after the first week of the daily games, then it's pretty much about three, only three games a week because they're a little bit more involved.

So it's, it's, you know, it's not as much as the intensity of daily training because we get into more, you know, of the longer exercises and, and, and very variations that you can play with those. So there's still a lot of information, but it actually, people can kind of pace themselves at that point for the rest of the class. So who should really be, you know, looking at the classes or considering the classes? I think we kind of glossed over a little bit before, if there are any prerequisite skills that folks should have for the starter games class. And then if you want to talk a little bit about that and a little bit about, you know, where people kind of fall on that scale of what, what class they should take or how much experience they should have, that would be great. Yeah. It's interesting. I, I, I, the last couple of years I've taught obedient starter games twice a year. And I've noticed of recent, they're a lot younger, younger teams, younger dogs are coming in and that works well. I've not had a problem with that. So I'm not sure if I had as young as four months, but I do allow, I do say four months is the minimum age. Cause there's enough games that they probably wouldn't do all the games, but there's enough games to keep a young, a young puppy busy. Um, so what I have found, I mean, I'll speak more to who tends to take the class is people who want to try something new. I was just, you know, you'd look over the intros and they're all saying, Hey, I've, I've, I've always been curious about obedience. I don't have any experience in it. I wanted to try it. This looks like a great intro to it. And that's what draws people in. Cause I think you're right kind of early on when you mentioned about the precision maybe is a turnoff or intimidating to people. So I tend to get people that are, um, looking for something different to do, you know, and this class just really, really spoke to them. I've also gotten people that have been, are too serious about their work and they've a little bit, maybe what I talked about at the beginning with my first, um, obedience dog and they want to loosen up a little bit. So if you, um, want to just kind of go back to some foundations, build a little bit motivation in your dog, um, maybe you've, you've, you've developed some stress with the training. Um, some of those teams will come into the class and it just loosens you up. You can bring back the joy. And that's usually what I find for both of the classes actually. But the obedience area games tend to be more of the younger dogs and the obedience, the regular

obedience games tends to be teams that are, you know, already actively, um, training and probably have already even trialed in obedience and they want some, you know, variety. They want, um, something, you know, just to add to, you know, with their regular routine of training. And, and a lot of the, um, the regular obedience games was definitely inspired by many of Denise's, you know, now, now retired classes, you know, the, um, healing games and advanced obedience and stuff like that. So there's definitely that flavor of, you know, keeping the dogs moving. Don't make them sit all the time and that kind of stuff. So it's, it's appeals to people who I think went down a more serious, um, track and, or might've gone too fast in their training and now want to bring the joy back and get the dog more motivated. So it sounds like, you know, either that, so either folks who have kind of gone down that path or who want to avoid going down that path that they know that that's kind of their tendency. And, uh, they want to make sure that they kind of get the fun in from the, from the start, the next dog or with, you know, the current dog, if they have a little one. Yeah. And, and, you know, the classes have both been very well received. Another thing I hadn't mentioned earlier was what I do is I indicate the purpose of each game. And to be honest, some games are really a skill. It's, you know, um, some games are truly games and some things are really putting, putting, you know, a skill, a skill on your dog. Um, but what I do is I indicate the purpose of the game and what that correlates to in the final skill. So I'll sometimes show the final, you know, competition ring, you know, version of it. And they, so that they could understand what they're working toward, because I found that that's the number one thing that can help, um, our learners, um, understand it's good if they know why they're doing something. Um, and if they're just kind of blindly going through a game and they don't understand why they're doing it, they might not be able to put all the pieces together. So that actually has worked really well where I kind of show the reason for the game and what it's bringing to the table. Yeah. So that's, that's actually real fun. Awesome. Well, to kind of round things out, my last question for everyone these days is what's something that you've learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training? So how teaching your dog to problem solve will help them cope better in situations where they may, um, where we may overreact or get worried about like a novel thing happens or

a person or dog comes into your training area. Um, and when it's not expected and maybe you have a dog who, um, might be a little reactive other dog or it's just something that could be startled or something. Um, cause sometimes with positive training, um, we help our dogs out too much. We throw a cookie, uh, cookie too quickly and we don't let them figure stuff out. Um, I do think dogs need to build a little bit of frustration, um, and, and, and figuring something on their own to build some empowerment and confidence and how you develop that problem solving is through shaping. Um, and this is something that, that Kamala had recently shared. Um, I had hosted him for a seminar and it was just, I had never thought of it in that way. I'd never thought of that. I could re if I let my dog and I, and I, in some situations, he saw me wanting to go help out Drac on something. And he said, just let him figure it out. And he totally figured out he could totally do what I wanted him to, but I didn't believe in him and I wasn't giving him the chance. I didn't want him to, him to struggle. And I wanted to help him out. I wanted to keep everything like happy and successful. And it ended up being just fine. He figured it out. And it really kind of gave me a renewed, just a renewed, um, view of training and how we need to let the dog take some responsibility and figure stuff out. And I do that with my nose work students too. Like the minute aren't my nose work students, some of them that are pretty handler focused, um, they immediately try to help their dog. And I said, let them problem solve. I said, they know what they're here to do. Let them figure it out. And their dogs go right back to searching. And I said, they are your dog, you know, didn't need your help. Cause the more we help them, the more they're going to take our help. Um, so yeah. So some of the ways you can do that is, um, just shape tricks, do tricks, teach some shaping stuff, wait out, wait out a little bit. I don't, I don't want the dog to, um, to be paralyzed and, you know, and you'd be, you'd be paralyzed if they're stuck. I mean, there's a difference with that, but just don't be so quick to help them. And, and I don't tend to train a lot of tricks and shape a lot of behaviors. Um, but I'm really enjoying that now because I went through a pretty lengthy kind of a retraining with Drac, um, so that he could figure stuff out on his own. And that was a real problem. And I, um, I'm finding already that he's kind of more confident in his environment, um, because he's able to problem solve that. Oh, that's not a threat. That's not an issue.

I can handle that. And it's, it's, it's, it's been very, I guess, empowering to me to kind of be able to relax a little bit as well and think that it's not all on me to handle situations that occur around, you know, our dogs and we're out there in the world training or, or whatever. And that the dog can actually learn to handle situations as well too. It sounds like it would be really nice to have that kind of confidence in your dog just to like, feel like he'll get this, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually am almost, I think about that almost every training session because I catch myself wanting to go help and then I stop. And then now I'm not even almost thinking about it anymore. It's becoming second nature and I'm able to pass it on to my students, um, and say, you know, let's, let's let the dog figure this out a little bit. Uh, or cause sometimes what people do is they'll just reward for bad criteria or, you know, because they're, because, you know, we tend to want to just stuff cookies in our dog's mouths. And it's, you know, that's why people reach in their pocket first before they mark or whatever, because we just are obsessed with feeding our dogs and we don't want them to, you know, suffer and be frustrated, but they have to work through that a little bit. So that was, um, a recent thing. So awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Julie. It's been fun to talk. Yeah, it was fun. It went by really fast. I could have talked more. We got a good, uh, a sampling of the classes and, uh, hopefully folks, folks feel it's pretty helpful. So thank you. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. This time with doctors, Jessica Heckman and Jennifer Summerfield to talk about anxiety and dogs. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the 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 Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music by Derry. Music by Derry. Thank you.