Those cold winter evenings

This time of the year is a bit quieter for agility. There are less shows, there are less training's as many club training tend to be canceled for weather, and there are less shows. The weather means that for many people their home training space is also less than ideal with mud, puddles and long grass!

Remember that you should schedule at least one decent break for your dogs from agility. This means a break from all shows AND all training. This gives their body a chance to recover from the repetitive stresses that agility puts onto our dogs, and also gives both you and them a break from the mental strain of training.

My dog's have just came off a solid three-month break from training and shows. This was strategic, as all of my breaks are! I needed to stop shows with Evo to break some bad behavioral habits that were occurring, and also retrain startlines. Whilst this is very much in progress, we have just started back into agility training and shows.

I also typically plan a summer break, but this year that will be a little shorter because I have signed up for a training seminar in January.  I have blogged about this previously, but I thought it was important to talk about again.

Remember also that you need to plan your year around big events, to make sure you are training up and peaking at the correct time (see this previous blog post).

Over my agility break my dogs are not on a total break from all activity. really its the opposite - we up our fitness work. Less agility training means more time for fitness workouts, long hikes, and a little bit of polishing of basic training skills like marker cues.

Fitness needs to be tailored to your dog, and constantly checked and tweaked to ensure that progress is being made. It's very hard to have 'one program that fits all' due to the many differences in our canine teammates. For this reason, it is very important to work with a suitably qualified and experienced professional.

If you are interested in seeing me for a fitness assessment, adding more difficult exercises, or creating a fitness program please email on me hybriddogtraining@gmail.com. Also keep an eye on the Facebook page as I regularly post about workshops, events, or times when I have more space for appointments.

We teach who we are

Today at school we had some leadership professional development. In teaching professional development is more than encouraged, it's required to fulfill the registered teacher professional standards. Sometimes professional development is not helpful to every person, or not at that point in their week, or term. Sometimes it's excellent, relevant, and timely.

Prior to this afternoon's session, we were given a reading to do. As per normal for me, I left it to the very last minute. I was pleasantly surprised. It was the most useful and relevant professional reading that I have done. The reading was from an essay: THE HEART OF A TEACHER Identity and Integrity in Teaching, by Parker J. Palmer.

As I was reading it occurred to me that the ideas in this reading were not only of the utmost importance to my teaching in school, but also in dog training.

Here's a few gems that jumped out at me: 

• The tangles of teaching have three sources: 
• "First, the subjects we teach are as large and complex as life, so our knowledge of them is always flawed and partial."
• "Second, the students we teach are larger than life and even more complex."
• " ...we teach who we are. Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse"
•  We need to open a new frontier in our exploration of good teaching: the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher. 
• Good teachers join self, subject, and students in the fabric of life because they teach from an integral and undivided self; they manifest in their own lives, and evoke in their students, a “capacity for connectedness.”
• As good teachers weave the fabric that joins them with students and subjects, the heart is the loom on which the threads are tied, the tension is held, the shuttle flies, and the fabric is stretched tight. Small wonder, then, that teaching tugs at the heart, opens the heart, even breaks the heart–and the more one loves teaching, the more heartbreaking it can be. 

So my questions for you. Whoever you may be. Whether teaching you're first ever class at your dog training club, or teaching professionally in the industry.


How well do you know your subject? Are you confident in the best practice, science-proven training methodologies? How are you keeping up your and progressing your knowledge? Whilst in New Zealand dog training is not a professionally regulated industry, we as teachers have a moral and ethical obligation to keep up to date with current information. There are SO many excellent free or minimal cost resources available.

How well do you know your student? Both canine and human. You cannot teach anyone if you do not know them. Observe their behavior, Listen to the human half of the team. Learn to read the dog, especially when the human may not be able to.

You teach who you are. How confident are you in your own beliefs, values, procedures and techniques. Use your experience and be confident in your own training identity. Be open to learn from your students both canine and human.

And lastly, take care of your own heart. Great teachers truly care about their students. This is intensified when there is a canine companion attached to your student. It hurts when someone chooses not to listen to your advice, or follow your suggested training protocol. It hurts when you can see the fallout coming that will impact the dog. It hurts when they don't come back, when you know that they really need too. You will not continue to be a good teacher if you do not care, but you need to find a way to take care of yourself. Find friends, colleagues, or a mentor that you can talk to when you need to. Find a network of professionals whose values and beliefs align with your own that you can refer to. Be sure to take the time that you and your own dogs need, whether this be training time or a nice long walk.

https://biochem.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/labs/attie/publications/Heart_of_a_Teacher.pdf
http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker/ 

Emotion in dog sports

Over the last year or so I've been on a journey, where so many things about what I do, how I train, and how I observe behaviour has changed, and changed for the better.

I am better with observing and marking behaviour. I now have multiple markers, and am adding more. I'm watching dog's around me and noticing things that I never used to notice. Frustrated, foaming, confused, not happy. Not all of them obviously, but quite a few!

I've pulled Evo out of the last three months of all competition, and all agility training. We've been working on his arousal, cleaning up reinforcement loops, and retraining startlines. The last few show's before I pulled him from competition he couldn't even sit on the startline let alone wait, was foaming at the mouth, and jumping up at my face in over arousal that looked like (to people watching) that he was biting me in the face.

This article has been published at a perfect time. Last week we went to club and worked on startlines, and he did his first agility jump in about three months.  Here's some video.  Tonight we did a proper training at home. Multiple agility things! I'm excited to move forward in our training plan, and start heading back to shows soon.

I cannot thank Sarah Stremming of the Cognitive Canine enough. Her courses on Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, and work she did with us in New Zealand in March has made this change happen.

Here's the full article in NZ Dog World: http://www.dogagility.org.nz/Articles/DWJun_Agility.pdf