How Dog Sports Will Transform Your Training Journey

🐾 Ever wondered what it takes to get started in dog sports—or how they benefit your dog’s mind and body? In this fun and educational episode, Em chats with ⁠@katherinek9trainer⁠, a multi-certified trainer and behaviorist, about agility, rally, enrichment, behavior, and why doing things differently matters.

💡 In this episode, you'll learn:

• How dog sports build confidence, trust, and focus

• Why enrichment is more than just puzzle toys

• How behavior and training are connected

• Tips for getting started in sports like rally and agility

🎧 Whether you're brand new to dog sports or a seasoned handler, this episode is full of insight, encouragement, and joy.

Guest Info:📲 Follow Katherine on Instagram: @katherinek9trainer

Stay Connected:
💛 Follow Straight Up Dog Talk for more insights and updates on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

#dogsports #agilitydogs #dogtrainingtips #enrichmentideas #straightupdogtalk

✨ This episode is proudly sponsored by our partnership with PetMatRx.
Use code SUDT20 to save 20% at petmatrx.com
Follow PetMatRx on Instagram: @petmatrx

Affiliate links may provide a small commission at no extra cost to you. Every partnership helps support our RV journey to bring real conversations and resources to pet parents across the country.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Straight Up Dog Talk,the podcast where pet parents,
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(00:21):
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(00:42):
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This stuff works, period. Welcome to straight up dog talk.
I'm Em and we are back again this week with another amazing

(01:25):
guest. We have Catherine McGuire to
talk about all things dog sports.
How are you doing, Catherine? Doing great I am.
I'm in puppy heaven right now. You.
Are in puppy heaven. I just got a nice little view of
the puppy. If you guys don't follow
Catherine on Instagram, you definitely should because there
is content up with the new puppywho is absolutely adorable.

(01:46):
Yeah, he's pretty cute. I mean, he's like objectively
cute his. Face is just so perfect and
fluffy and the coloring oh, he's.
Just he's so cute. Pear Share puppies are cool
because you never really know how they're gonna turn out
because they usually look quite different as puppies than they
do as adults. It's always this mystery of
like, what are you gonna look like when you're older?
Which is super fun. Honestly.

(02:08):
Fitz was the same way when he was a puppy.
The people that I got him from called him Marshmallow Head
because he was mostly white and he had these tiny little red
spots on his ears. And now he's got these big red
eye patches with the white stripe down his face.
And that's not what I expected at all when I when I got him.
So it's kind of fun to watch them grow from that little mush

(02:28):
stage into the full on. This is what I actually look
like as an adult. Right.
Yeah, it's, it's a very interesting process.
And yeah, the white markings on a lot of dogs will change as
they get older, which is also fascinating.
It's very cool. It's.
Very cool. Well, for the listener who don't
know you, why don't you just give a little rundown of who you

(02:49):
are, what you do, and some interesting things about you,
OK. So I am a CPDTKA certified dog
trainer. I am also a CDBC certified dog
behavior consultant through the I Double ABC and I completed a
course on applied animal behavior at University of
Washington as well as a whole long list of different education

(03:12):
things. I've been involved with dog
training and dog behavior my whole life.
I'm going to turn 40 this year, so I've been doing this for 20
years professionally. It's longer than that if we
count just as a hobby, and this is all I've ever really done.
I do a lot of focus on behavior.But then of course, on the other
side of the spectrum, I do a lotof dog sports.

(03:33):
I compete nationally with my dogs in both agility and rally
obedience. We have done competitive
obedience, confirmation. I've dabbled in barn hunt and
hurting and so on and so forth. I also teach.
I do some virtual classes for Bergen University and I'm
actually going to go and be a guest speaker for some vet

(03:55):
techs. I like to do a lot of teaching
as part of what I do now. I love to give that education
back to others who are really passionate about it.
I do private in home sessions. I also do virtual sessions.
I teach classes and I occasionally do seminars,
webinars, all that fun stuff. I'm loving watching this
interaction go on over here. I've had the broken foot, he's
just been extra, extra because Ican't take him out every hour

(04:18):
and play with him and it's winter so it's been really
difficult. I understand high energy dogs.
You know, I, I love myself some high energy dogs, especially the
herding breeds. And I guess I didn't go over
that. I am heavily involved in
Perenian Shepherds. I'm actually on the board of
directors for the Perenian Shepherd Club of America.
I have dabbled a little bit in genetic conservation and

(04:41):
breeding. I've had a litter of puppies one
time. It's an international effort and
that's a really interesting element that I've been involved
in as well. I'm also heavily involved in
rescue work. I volunteer with LA County
Animal Services, also Pasadena Humane, and I work with a group
called Canine Youth Alliance andI'm a dog training instructor
for that program where we do twodifferent things, training

(05:04):
volunteers at the the county Animal Services, Animal Care and
Control, and those volunteers get to have higher education
about enrichment and training. We also do a program where we
pair dogs from the shelters withkids from the Boys and Girls
Club that apply to be part of this program and they get three
weeks of learning how to train dogs.

(05:25):
That is so cool. I love that.
What a neat program and I love that you give back educationally
because I've also been doing this my whole life.
I started pet sitting when I was12 and I've been a vet tech and
a bit of pets that are now. I'm a dog trainer and we do the
podcast, but it's the education piece because I have seen so
many years of this from so many different purviews.

(05:47):
I think it's really important toput that education piece out
there, and that's why I love having people like you come on
the podcast because we can talk about lots of different things
and cover lots of different ground, but also help people
understand that dog culture is always changing and there's
always a new way to do somethingand there's always a different

(06:07):
perspective to look at. And I don't like to make people
feel bad or guilty or shameful about what they've currently
experienced with their dog because every dog is different.
And I currently have that dog. That made me go.
Whoa wait, something needs to give here.
So I feel like that light bulb moment for me was what brought
this podcast about and just mademe realize how much the

(06:30):
education piece is needed. It absolutely is.
It's something that is not focused on nearly enough, in my
opinion. That's because it's a
unregulated industry. We've got people who end up
creating their own echo chambersof groups that train together
and have similar styles, and it's kind of always been that
way. It's actually a little bit more

(06:50):
broad now with social media, butwe're also seeing as much as we
have a lot more visibility with different types of training, we
also see that people end up evendeeper in those echo chambers
because they find more people like that.
And then social media likes to cycle those things so that it's
just become, that's all you eversee, right?
That's another reason that I started this whole thing is
because I was tired of the misinformation, the candy

(07:14):
coating, the This is the perfectway to do it.
And then, of course, then seeingthe exact opposite end of that
spectrum where people are swinging dogs around on prong
collars and making thousands of dollars for doing that.
It's really confusing to somebody that goes out there in
Googles. I want to train my dog.
The spectrum is too large and it's too scary and people

(07:36):
shouldn't have to tackle that ontheir own.
They shouldn't. I do not envy a pet owner trying
to navigate this because it is difficult and there's so much
information out there. And of course, part of the
persona of the dog trainer and part of how a lot of people are
very successful at being a dog trainer is by speaking in

(07:56):
absolutes and with a lot of confidence.
And it is unfortunate that there's a lot of people doing
exactly that. They speak in absolutes.
This is the way to fix it. And because of that, those
people get followed a lot because they speak as if this is
the way that it is. And people like to trust that.
That's something that we see is a quality in a leader.

(08:17):
And so we want to trust those people.
But the truth of the matter is alot of times they're saying
stuff that's absolutely ridiculous.
Just because they say it was confidence doesn't mean that
it's right. But it gets a lot of followers.
And it is an unfortunate piece about what we see on the science
side of things. We exist in a world of no

(08:37):
absolutes. Science is very focused on not
speaking in absolutes unless it is absolute.
But because a lot of the very educated, very science based
behavior professionals are disregarded because they speak
of things in a way that is very scientific and is very accurate
and people are not attracted to that.

(08:57):
Our general pet owning public, they tend to go towards the
confidence rather than the science and information, which
can be a little heady and especially depending on how it's
presented can get frustrating for people.
Too. I totally agree with that.
I think that as somebody who likes dog behavior and wants to
understand everything about dogsand has that veterinary
background, like I like the nerdy stuff, I want them to go

(09:20):
deep. I want to understand the
science, I want to understand all of the things.
So give me those really complicated, complex things
where I have to look up words. But for your general everyday
pet owner, they definitely don'twant that.
It's too much, it's boring, it doesn't make sense.
There's too many words that theydon't understand.
And somebody who is speaking with confidence and absolutes
about very simple things, peoplesee that they can make it

(09:43):
immediate change, they can applythose things, but what they
don't understand is that is justa tiny piece of the larger.
Puzzle, and that's where. This podcast comes in because we
can talk about those larger pieces and say, okay, you
started with this. We needed to fix this.
Well, we fixed it, but this is how it's going to affect
everything else. And now you need to look at your
daily life and all of these things.

(10:04):
It gives an environment where people can say, oh, they're
talking about these hard topics,but they're breaking them down
to a point where we don't have to go, I don't understand this
and just slide past it, right? And most people don't care.
When I go in to work with a new client, they don't care about
the terminology or even a lot oftimes what's happening.

(10:24):
They just want their dog to not have the issue that they have
any more. Some of that does require
explaining certain things because you're going to be going
in and training the dog and you have to explain what you're
doing. But also it has to be, it has to
be obtainable. It has to be something that they
can take in and it makes sense and it actually makes a

(10:46):
difference for the situation. And it's one of the things that
I explained to a lot of people about the difference between a
trainer and a behavior consultant, or everyone likes to
use the word behaviorist. And that's a whole other topic
that we can get into, but I often explain the difference is
a trainer and I'm both, but a trainer is there to train the
dog's skills and a behavior professional is there to explain

(11:09):
why something is happening and help to change that.
So it's just a whole different thing.
Actually, Canine Youth Alliance,this is my favorite example of
this canine youth alliance. We, we would do these walks
after the session and it would be on the sidewalk.
So it's one dog and handler at atime.
And there was this one Husky that every time we'd go on walk,
he would be singing the song of his people and just making so

(11:33):
much noise. And they were like, what do we
do about this? And I was like, oh, next time
he's just going to go at the front of the line.
And they were like, OK. And lo and behold, he didn't
make any noise when he was at the front of the line.
And when they came back, one of the volunteers who's been there
way longer than I have, she looks at me and she goes, so
that's the difference between a behaviorist and a trainer.
And I was like, yeah, exactly Itis, right?
We didn't train the dog anything, but we changed the

(11:55):
situation so that we didn't elicit the behavior we didn't
like. That's an.
Excellent example actually. Before we dive into training and
behavior stuff, because I'm surewe could probably do 5 episodes
between you and I and this wholetopic, let's jump into the
sports stuff. There's a lot of misinformation
about the sport dog community because people want to get

(12:16):
involved and they don't know howand they don't know if they have
the right dog and they don't know if they can participate.
There are so many ways that you can get involved.
It doesn't matter what kind of breed you have, but there are
sports that certain breeds excelin, so maybe you could clarify a
little bit about that. I know that you do specific
things so you don't have to go too far in anything that you're

(12:38):
not comfortable with, but maybe agility is a great place to
start. Agility is a good one.
No Agility and Rally, which are my 2 primary sports, are both
very accessible and open to any type of dog, which is a really
nice element about that. There are very few physical
limitations, but there are physical limitations that
certain dogs can't do. If your dog hasn't an amputated

(12:59):
leg, then they can't do agility.They're blind, they can't do
agility. These things are pretty logical.
But otherwise, as long as they are physically able, they can do
agility or rally. There are some sports that are
for specific breeds or specific types of dogs.
Herding is only open to herding breeds.
Things like Earth dog are only open to dachshunds and terriers.

(13:22):
So there are some really cool individualized sports as well.
But agility and rally are definitely the, the biggest and
the most accessible. I, I could go through a whole
history, but I don't know if that's where we want to go with
this. Go for it.
All right, well, we're going to go really quickly.
Agility was actually started as a putting on a show essentially
at Crufts. Somebody was tasked with this.

(13:42):
I can't remember his name right now to put on some sort of an
exhibition show in between classes so that people wouldn't
get bored in the audience. So he took the concept of
equestrian show jumping and he made a modified version of that
for the docs. You can still find videos of
this, by the way. It looks so dramatically
different than what we do now, but it is the basis of where
that came from. That was actually the late 70s,

(14:05):
and then in the 80s we started to see agility over here.
It was 86, I believe that was first the United States Dog
Agility Association, which is still around around USDAA and we
started to get competitions overhere and in 94 AKC picked up
agility as well. And of course there's other
organizations that do agility, Ask A Nadak, CPE and UKI is is

(14:28):
another one that's becoming really big right now.
I think it's still the fastest growing dog sport in the world.
It's so much fun. You get to run around with your
dog and do obstacles. The dog does obstacles, but
you're doing a lot too. I was enamored with it from the
very beginning, personally. I also did showdump with my
horses, so it was very easy for me to kind of step into that.

(14:48):
But agility has also changed a lot overtime.
One of the things that I talk about a lot with agility is that
I most definitely believe that agility has been one of the
biggest proponents of positive reinforcement training out there
because it just so happened right around the time that
agility started to become a thing.

(15:08):
Positive reinforcement training was starting to become a thing
as well, and there were a coupleof big handlers who were having
wild success in agility, including Susan Garrett.
Other competitors saw how successful they were and went,
how are you doing this? I want whatever you have.
It was not about the ethics or morals of training, especially
not at that time, but it was about having success.

(15:29):
Agility as a general sport is heavily positive reinforcement
focus, and that's purely becauseyou just can't get the same
level of enthusiasm, speed and drive if you're not doing lots
and lots of positive reinforcement and confidence
building. Bringing punishments in
notoriously slows down the dock.They become cautious, they

(15:52):
become careful. And because this is a sport
where you're not repeating the same exercises in which you see
in obedience, you see in any of the protection sports, they do a
lot of repetition of the same exercises.
Agility, every time you step up to that course, it's a new
course. Your dog will have never seen it
before. So they have to be very
confident and fast about listening to your cues.

(16:14):
And if they question that, they're going to slow down,
they're going to drop a bar, they're going to have all of
these other issues. That's really why positive
reinforcement became such a big deal in agility.
And I really think it's one of the biggest reasons why positive
reinforcement has grown and become more popular in the dog
world. Of course, we see that, Wayne,
every once in a while, but that's pretty normal.

(16:35):
Yeah. Rally actually is a fascinating
sport because it came from a desire to save obedience and get
people involved in dog sports. Competitive obedience, I
believe, is the only AKC dog sport that has consistently had
fewer entries every year. All of the other ones are
growing. Obedience in the US can be kind

(16:56):
of stagnant or dry. It's the same thing over and
over again. And we are looking for
perfection in these very, very specific ways.
And it's not always something that especially the modern
generation are really interestedin doing.
Rally was actually created because there were people who
would use these kinds of exercises to prep their dogs for

(17:18):
obedience. So they decided to make it a
sport all on its own with the idea of really bringing in new
blood, bringing in new people todog sports and getting them
involved. And it did have somewhat of that
effect. It's more popular than
obedience, that's for sure. Rally, if you don't know, by the
way, is essentially obedient skills by signs.
So you take the skills that you need in obedience and then you

(17:40):
take the concept of an agility course and you do those
obedience pieces as a course. So each sign or station will
tell you something like you haveto ask the dog to sit and then
lay down and then you move forward to the next sign and you
perform that sign and in betweenthe signs, the dog is in heel at
all times. It's a more accessible version

(18:02):
of obedience because it's more relaxed.
The judging is much more relaxedthan competitive obedience.
You can repeat cues in the novice category.
You can still pat your leg and you can do a lots of
encouragement. You can talk as much as you want
to. None of that stuff matters.
In fact, they actually look for the relationship with the dog
when you are going through your course.

(18:22):
So Rally is a fun one as well. I.
Think that it's wild that the relationship isn't part of the
whole thing anyway, right? That should be judged in my
opinion. How well is this dog listening?
How well is this dog checking in?
Is this dog eager to interact with this person?
Because to me, that is more important than if the dog can do

(18:43):
the thing or not. Because most dogs can do the
thing if they want to, but the way that they do the thing and
how they approach the way that they do the thing and how
excitedly they do The thing is so much more important.
I've been working with a client recently on muzzle training and
one of the dogs is literally nowjust diving her face into the

(19:06):
muzzle every time it comes out and her tail is wagging and
she's so excited. That is such a good thing to
see. That's the same thing with Sport
World, right? You want to see them eager to
participate. And so do the judges.
Obedience and rally judging is ultimately subjective.
There are very specific rules, but it is the judge's decision

(19:27):
as to whether that line was crossed and points can be taken
off. Even in the Rally description,
it talks about wanting to see anenthusiastic relationship.
There's no marking off for not having a relationship or
connection, but you'll see things that you would mark off,
like the dog is sniffing and disconnecting from their person
or lagging behind because they're concerned, or if the

(19:51):
leash is tight, you get points off.
We use leashes in novice and theoptional intermediate class in
Rally as well. Those things are all really
intended to focus on exactly that.
We. Want to see enthusiastic, happy
dogs doing the sport? You don't always, but the
enthusiastic happy ones generally do and should get the
higher scores while. We're talking about enthusiastic

(20:13):
participation. Let's talk about the personality
of the dog that should participate in these sports
versus the kind of dog, the breed of dog, because I think
people get too focused on that part.
And they're like, well, I have this kind of dog and it's really
good at this and this and this and German Shore here.
Let's just say that that's a great dog fertility, but also

(20:34):
good for other things too. The breed doesn't always matter,
right? The personality and the will of
the dog is what matters. So could you maybe give some
descriptions, some qualities, some behavior point people in
the right direction to give theman idea if they have the right
temperament for these sports or not?
Personally, I believe that any dog that is physically able

(20:57):
would have fun doing either one of these sports.
Now, the limitations would be ifwe have a dog who is very
fearful or reactive, then that would be a very difficult
environment for them and I wouldn't recommend that
necessarily, at least not at first.
But I have worked with reactive dogs, we focus a lot first on

(21:17):
private sessions and they are then able to go on and compete.
But in general, if your dog stresses out with things like
that, you maybe want to practicejust at home or privately and
then see if you could work up toit.
But the other thing to remember is that with everything that
happened with the pandemic, these sports are even more
accessible. So Rally, now all of your titles

(21:39):
can be done virtually. Well, there is a limitation.
You can't do Rae because that requires that you do both the
advanced and excellent courses on the same day.
And there's no way to prove thatand video it.
So you can't get the combo titles, the Rae or the Rock.
And if you do virtual, those scores can't count towards
nationals. I recently found that out too.
So it can be much more accessible even for those dogs

(22:02):
who traditionally might strugglein those environments.
You could do it at home now and you can get those titles, which
is so cool. But I really think that the dogs
who do best in sports like this are the dogs who want to have
something to do, who like to work with their person.
But all of that can also be created.
You work on that relationship inpart through training for sports

(22:23):
like this, and you get such a deeper bond and the
communication that you can unlock with your dog because
you're doing all of this is wild.
It's like a whole nother level. It's part of the reason why so
many people, when they see dogs that are involved in dog sports,
see these amazingly trained dogsin any situation.
And it's not always that they'reamazingly trained, but they have

(22:44):
such a skill set of communication with their human
that it's fluid. It's like their person
understands, you know, when to put them in the situation or
not. And by the way, I'm not saying
that this is everyone, because not everyone, but in general, it
just takes you to a whole notherlevel with that relationship
with your dog, which I think is amazing.
But I'm going to come back to your actual question, which was

(23:05):
the type of dog I always love telling people this because my
most competitive rally dog, I went to nationals with him twice
was a miniature long haired dachshund.
I don't know if he was ever out of the ribbons, but he would
very often take first. It was a lot of fun to stand up
there next to the golden retrievers and border collies
and have my little dachshund take first place.
And then when I started my Petership, who's a rare breed,

(23:28):
and their reputations a little all over the place, we would go
to competitions and get 121212 alot of time, which was also
very, very fun. I would always have other
competitors asking me about how I got such a flashy heel on my
Dachshund and how I got him to look so enthusiastic.
And I was like, positive reinforcement.

(23:48):
They're like, really? That's it.
Well, yeah. But committing to that not.
I use treats sometimes, but thenI also use punishments.
No, really positive reinforcement.
That's why I, especially with a breed like dachshunds, who are
kind of notorious for not doing well in those kinds of sports,
you can unlock so much more potential when you shift that
because I've seen dachshunds in the ring who have a lot of

(24:10):
punishment history and it is notthe same performance.
Not the same body posture either.
No, but, but if you're talking about like a Malinois or a
border collie, you might not know honestly, but with certain
breeds you do. So it was one of those things
that was an amazing experience for me.
He was my first rally dog, my dogs and and the first time.
This was pretty cool. The first time in the ring with

(24:32):
a we got a perfect score of 100 and I didn't know that we were
under a judge who was notoriously critical and really
hard. And she hold me up in front of
all of the classes to tell everyone that I was the only
score of 100 that she gave the whole day in any class, which
was very, very nice. But I did it with the little
Dachshund, which is most impressive I think for most

(24:55):
people. When we talk about breeds that
are particularly good for one sport or another, I don't get as
stuck on on that. I actually like to do a lot of
these things with off breeds because I like a lot of the off
breeds, but also because me too,because I think it's a
challenge. And I really like a challenge.
Personally, when I look at othertrainers in sports for who I

(25:15):
want to train with, I like to see trainers who can work with
and be successful with differenttypes of dogs.
Because if they can't, then I better have the same breed that
they do because that might be all that they have experience
with. So I always try to go to those
that can do that way with a lot of different types.
I completely agree with you. Also, it drives home the point

(25:36):
that you can work with any breedif you put in the right amount
of effort, the right amount of training, if you're consistent,
if you're positive, and all of those things.
You can train any dog to do this.
You literally can. You just have to be willing to
do it. It might be more difficult
because of their personality or their size or their genetics or

(25:56):
whatever. There are tons of different
factors, but you have those samesetbacks with any breed.
I think that getting too focusedon the German shorthair or the
Dalmatian or the Malinois or whatever is best for this.
So maybe physically they're an ideal candidate for that.
But this dog and this dog and this dog could also be just as

(26:17):
good with the right training andthe proper conditioning.
And I think that that's something that's really
important because just like people feel excluded out of
things in their life, I think that they also start to exclude
their dogs out of things becausethey're like, well, I have a pit
bull, I can't do that. Even a Yorkie or a Chihuahua,
all of those dogs are trainable.You just have to know whether or

(26:38):
not you have the gumption and the willpower to do it.
Right. And it, and it may be a little
bit of a learning curve. I'm a big advocate for if you
want to do it, go for it, but beaware that there may be some
challenges in there. I've always been that person.
Like if you tell me I can't do something, that's what I'm going
to do. I'm that person too.
Do it the hard way. Never go to nationals with a

(26:59):
dachshund. Try me twice.
The second time was actually at the highest level at that time
for rally, which was the Rae andhe was the only dachshund that
was entered at that level and hewas one of three dachshunds of
the entire company that's. Crazy.
Yeah. That's so cool, though.
And unique and different and interesting.
There's nothing wrong with beingunique and different and

(27:19):
interesting. It's actually fascinating,
especially when you're at these events and you see 18 Golden
Retrievers and 25 Malinois and three Dachshunds.
Like, is that fun guys? Exactly.
It's also one of the things thatWestminster has really
capitalized on well with their Masters Agility Championship.
Do you know how that's formatted?

(27:40):
I don't. It's an interesting form format
because essentially they will only take two of anyone breed in
any height class for final. It's part of why you don't see a
sea of Border Collies and Shelties and Papillons because
only the top 2 in each one of those breeds is allowed to go on
to finals and then the others have to be different breeds.

(28:01):
So we see more breeds in the finals there competing and that
is a televised event, so it's fantastic.
There was a bulldog that did great and was like all over
social media. Yeah, because it is a bulldog
agility. He was doing so good.
There's several examples like that, but that's something that
they have really capitalized on because it can get kind of

(28:22):
boring if you are just watching Border Collie after Border
Collie after Border Collie. No offense to Border Collies.
I love them. I run one in agility for a
spectator. They are seeing the same thing.
Sea of monotony. Yeah, exactly.
And don't get me wrong, I have aborder collie mix.
I love them too, Like they're great dogs, but I don't want to
see essentially the same dog do the same thing 1520 thirty times

(28:46):
because that's how many of them were entered.
Actually, if I'm a judge, I'm sorry.
I want to see something different I do.
Well, all the judges, they're going to have to just deal with
that because that's just how that works.
Yeah, and some venues, you see more of that than others.
USDAA and UKI guaranteed I am going to see way more Border
Collies than I do at AKC competitions because AKC of

(29:10):
course is focused more on all different breeds because it is
confirmation and and breed registry first and foremost.
So you see a lot more dogs of different breeds there.
It's also a little bit more accessible even for the dog
because they have more generous course times.
So if the dog's a little bit slower, they will still be able
to make course time and get a qualifying score.

(29:31):
Whereas in USDAA and UKI the course times are much shorter.
It requires the dog to be quite a bit faster and if you're out
of course time then you don't get a cue and was kind of a
waste even if you had a clean run.
But that's why we tend to see a sea of border Collies at a lot
of the USDAA and UKI, whereas AKC we tend to see a much

(29:52):
broader array of breeds. That actually goes right into my
next question, which is energy level.
They don't think that people take that into consideration a
lot of time. Just because you have a border
collie does not mean that your border collie has the oomph that
they need for these sports. So what is the level of oomph do

(30:12):
you think that your dog needs inorder to participate?
We talk about energy levels and dogs a lot, and I think that we
overdo it honestly, because moreoften than not we have dogs who,
yes, there's a huge amount of variance in their natural energy
level, but more often than not, it has more to do with whatever

(30:35):
they were bred for and how far away they are from that.
So what I mean by that is BorderCollie bred for herding, they
should be out all day doing their job and they should come
home and rest. You shouldn't get a dog that
comes home and is chaotic in thehome.
But it's not just exercise, right?
They are doing a job. They are having to be very
mentally acute. They have to listen, they have

(30:57):
to do a ton of different things.It's not just running, it's not
just chasing a ball. So one of the things that I see
a lot is very well meaning owners having taken a dog that
they know is pretty high energy and can continually put just
physical exercise on them in order to try and expend that
energy. And instead they have created a

(31:20):
dog that learned to never settledown.
Then we actually have hyper arousal.
We actually have a concoction ofcortisone and adrenaline that is
constantly flowing at a higher level than it should be because
we're constantly adding more physical exercise.
There is something that'll not alot of people know, but on
average, healthy adult dogs spend about two hours out of

(31:43):
their day doing actual physically exercising
activities. The rest of the 22 hours of the
day are either spent doing low energy activity, resting or
sleeping. Yeah.
So if your dog is actively getting more than two hours of
exercise with you in a day, it better be because you're
actually giving them a task and not because you're trying to

(32:04):
expend energy because you're notat that point, they've gotten
enough exercise. What you're doing is you're
actually just teaching them not to settle down.
But what people see, and the reason that they do this is
because they take the dog home and it's still high energy, but
you have to give them time to settle down is one thing.
And the other thing is, think about it like a toddler.

(32:25):
They get overtired and they needa nap.
They might not seem like it. They're sitting there going, no,
I still want to do the thing. But they're also really cranky
and kind of demanding. So just like a dog, when you
actually put them in their pen or their crate and say take a
nap, they zonk out because they're actually tired.
So I try to really encourage structured downtime.
The point being energy level. You do want a dog that wants to

(32:48):
do things with you. But guess what?
I have found that every dog wants to do things with you with
the right motivation, and there isn't an energy level that would
be too low for these sports. It would be more about their
desire to do it and teaching them to enjoy doing it than
actually having to have a certain energy level.

(33:10):
Often we'll say high energy whenwe mean we have a very fast dog.
That's sometimes the case too. And when you talk about really
competitive dogs in sports like agility, you want a dog that is
physically able to be fast if you want to be really
competitive. But a lot of people just want to
do it for fun and you want a dogthat has enough energy to keep
up with you. But I'm going to tell you, even

(33:31):
though we talk about energy levels and dogs, I don't want a
dog that is high energy. I want a dog that is high
enthusiasm. I want a dog that will come and
work with me whenever I want to work.
But also chill with me when we're at home.
Just high energy dogs don't do that.
I have one of those and I am that person that didn't know

(33:54):
because I didn't know what I wasgetting into when I got my dog,
I had never had a high energy breed before.
And he would get overstimulated and then his tongue would be
lolly and all of his face and hewould be stumbling around like a
drunk person and he would not calm down.
And so finally it got to the point where I was like, OK, we
have to do something about that.And we did.
And we, we changed things. And now we have a cue, which is

(34:16):
let's go hang out, which means let's go lay on the bed.
I'm going to turn on the TV and snooze.
Immediately snooze. He's out.
Yeah, but it took a while for meto figure that out, yeah.
And it is confusing, right? Especially because we have been
focused very much as a society on making sure that we exercise
our dogs enough because we went through these phases where we

(34:38):
weren't getting our dogs out. We weren't exercising them
because we were transitioning asa society from being very
outdoors all the time to being indoors and having more screen
time. And what happened with that
shift is our dogs stopped being exercised because we weren't
just going out and doing things all the time that often involved
animals, dogs. We had to make a concerted

(35:00):
effort to go and exercise our dogs, which is fantastic.
We still want to do those things.
But of course we can see the other side of it where it's just
gone a little bit too far because of that thought process.
And just because you know, most pet owners are not really
educated in behavior and all of these things, nor do they have
to be. So it's a simple thing to do and

(35:21):
it is very well meaning with those dogs.
By the way, when I work with dogs that are experiencing hyper
arousal, the very first thing that I have them do is take a
cortisol vacation for 48 hours. So it's 48 hours of nothing.
It's just sit and watch TV, hangout, go outside to potty and
then back in. And at first they are like what

(35:43):
is happening? But actually the reason we do it
for 48 hours is because we want that cortisol and adrenaline to
actually drain out of their system because it takes about
that long. So if my dog is getting heavily
exercised every single day and never able to come down out of
that, we don't have 48 hours where they just are able to
chill or have low energy stuff. Now we've got a dog and that's

(36:04):
not healthy. We know that, right?
It's not healthy to have tons ofcortisol and adrenaline
constantly going. So we have to have those breaks
and we have to sometimes take a little cortisol vacation.
The last client that I had, by the way, that I told him that
he's like, so you're telling me that for two days I need to just
stay in bed with my dog and watch TV?
And I was like, yeah, he was like, OK, vacation, that sounds

(36:28):
great. I was like, yes, tell everyone
that your trainer told you to and it's fine.
It's so funny because now the enrichment is a more well known
topic. It's great because it's a lot
easier to explain to people, OK,we need to have X amount of play
time and we need to have X amount of enrichment time.
We need to have X amount of nap time.

(36:49):
And that's so much easier and digestible for people to
understand. But I think that we've also
gotten lost in the way of lick mats because people think that
lick mats are the only enrichment activity that there
is out there. And we've educated on this.
But. I would love to hear your.
Opinion on this? This is one of the places where

(37:09):
I very much diverge from most ofthe training community.
I hope no one from those companies is listening.
I hate lick math. Now don't get me wrong, there
are times where I think they canbe very beneficial.
The ones that have the sticky things so that you can put them
on a wall and, you know, put peanut butter on them while you
are bathing or grooming a dog? Cool, I'm all for that.

(37:32):
Or in the car. Yeah, wherever you might be able
to utilize that in a way that you really wouldn't be able to
do with anything else. Cool.
But outside of that, it's just licking.
And I think that a lot of dogs get frustrated about it because
they don't usually eat most of their food by just licking.
In fact, the times when I have given my dogs licking mats in
the in the past, they actually give up on it faster than they

(37:53):
give up on Kong's or anything else because they can't really
get into some of those little grooves.
That one is just not my favorite.
I have other ones that I prefer and actually I'm going to take a
quick divergent to as far as feeding goes.
And this is really interesting. I recently and Oh my gosh, I
cannot remember the name of it. Oh, this is awful.
I'll find it for you. There is a company that is

(38:16):
creating these slate for dog to eat off of and it is it's made
of a hard plastic material. That's the other thing is that
there's a lot of silicone going on in all of our pet stuff,
which is a whole other topic. But these plates are this hard
plastic and they have different grooves in them and stuff, but
it's like very gentle, differentinteractive pieces.
And the idea is you can put different kinds of food.

(38:38):
In fact, it even has one of those liquid trays around the
outside, if I remember correctly, and the dog can
interact with the food in a different way.
I know that that sounds kind of funny, but it was actually a vet
friend who introduced me to this.
And one of the things that I took away from that more than
anything else was it's, it's notnatural for dogs to eat out of a
bowl. It's not.
And what do we usually do? We take that bowl and we stick

(39:00):
it in a corner and we ask our dogs to put their head into a
corner and eat out of a bowl, which often restricts their
vision. And especially for dogs who have
resource guarding issues, we areasking them to be in a very
uncomfortable, very abnormal situation while eating.
So when I found out about those plates, I thought that that is
just the coolest thing. It really made me much more

(39:23):
aware of the fact that that is areally unnatural thing that we
ask our dogs to do here, eat outof a bowl in a corner.
Just because we do something does not mean we should find a
way to teach our dogs to do thatsame thing.
Yeah, I've gone down the nutrition rabbit hole the last
two years and I am actually working towards getting my

(39:43):
certified canine nutritionist because I feel so far down the
nutrition rabbit. Hole.
That's cool, I've gotten to. The point where I'm starting to
realize what we're feeding our dogs, how we're feeding our
dogs, how we expect our dogs to eat all of these things is not
tapping into their genetics, their biology, all of these

(40:03):
things. We're not satisfying those needs
because we're not allowing them to RIP, tear, to destroy things
like they would have in the wild.
Absolutely. And it's one of the things that
we are getting better at focusing on enrichment that
allows our dogs to do those things because it is one of the

(40:24):
major issues, issues that we seewith dogs in pet homes is that
they are expressing natural behaviors that are incompatible
with a human environment. When we're talking about our
dogs natural behaviors, there's a lot of smelling and sniffing,
there's a lot of foraging, there's a lot of ripping and

(40:46):
tearing. These are all very, very natural
inclinations for our dogs. And guess what?
What are the usual issues that we see with dogs in the home?
Ripping through things, getting things up, going through the
trash. By the way, how did dogs evolve
from eating human trash? Literally, right?
Traditionally, we haven't given them outlets for those things.
We just suppress them. We just say you can't do it.

(41:08):
We got to suppress it. The one exception to that, at
least for my entire career, was digging.
For my entire career, anytime that anyone was struggling with
their dog digging inappropriately, I said get a
sand pit or designate an area inyour yard for a sand pit. 100%
of the time it worked. Why I didn't pick up much
earlier in my career on using those things for other elements,

(41:29):
I don't know, but I have a lot more experience now and a lot
more focus on behavior. My dogs do eat in a bowl in the
morning because I have a dehydrated food and so it's a
very kind of wet food that I give them.
But dinner is never in a bowl. Dinner is either in a Kong, a
snuffle mat, an Omega treat ball, a topple.
I've got several different things that we rotate through,

(41:51):
but dinner is never in a bowl because I have the ability to
give my dog something to do likea Kong or snuffle mat.
I'm I'm newly obsessed with snuffle mats because it
satisfies that foraging and sniffing like anything else.
Not only is just how they're getting their food, which is
lovely and allowing for that level of enrichment, but also

(42:14):
I'm a pretty busy person. We talk about all of these
things, doing walks every day and doing training every day.
I am a trainer and it is hard for me to get all of that stuff
in. So if I can find a way to give
my dog enrichment in their dailylife, maybe potentially tire
them out a little bit, which it always does and I don't have to

(42:34):
actively be there doing it, that's what I'm going to do
because I just can't be there every day.
I just can't give that time always.
But I still want to provide my dog with the experiences that
they need. I also do a lot of activities
now that even embrace a lot moreof that shredding and all of
those fun behaviors, but those ones I supervise because we
allow for box treading, toilet paper rolls, paper, but only

(42:58):
with permission and only with supervision because it's a very
messy undertaking. Very messy.
But it's also so, so, so enjoyable.
And honestly, for one of my dogs, it was the thing that
she's been missing her whole life.
It was like, Oh my God, you're letting me actually RIP things
up. It was a game changer for her.
It was just like, OK, this is all I ever want to do.

(43:21):
And she doesn't do it inappropriately.
None of my dogs do. None of my dogs steal anything
or RIP anything that they shouldn't.
It's only when I give it to them.
And I started very, very interactive.
I would put it right in front, let them grab a end and we'd
tear it together. And then we just gradually kind
of worked up to them being able to do it on their own.
The. First time I ever gave Fitz an
activity box, I took an Amazon box and then I took a fruit roll

(43:45):
up box and a granola bar box anda cereal box and some brown
wrapping paper toilet paper rolls.
I just made a bunch of differentthings and then stacked it all
inside the box and then I foldedthe box shut.
I didn't know what he was gonna do.
He'd never done this before. And I will tell you what the
excitement that he had, first ofall.
But second of all, watching him dig into the box was so much

(44:08):
fun. I enjoyed myself for 45 minutes
while he tore it apart because it was hilarious just watching
him be a dog for a minute and just totally destroy everything.
It was kind of fun, honestly. I was like, This is why people
have those rooms where they go in with sledgehammers and like
destroy things. Well, and, and that's actually
on that note, before we started recording, you saw where my

(44:31):
puppy is set up. I do this with any young dog
really puppy. I create enrichment pens.
I did make a video detailing howI do this with the same idea
that I can't necessarily be there all the time to provide
all of the things that my dog might need, nor do I want to be.
I don't want to be the only source of good things for my dog

(44:51):
because what is my dog going to do when I leave?
Probably be pretty upset. And I don't like to set that up
that way. I try to create a very
stimulating, exciting, interactive environment.
So I do enrichment pens. I use several climb tables and
I'll put them in different positions and then I will switch
that out every few days. I trade out toys.
I will hide treats in places. I will stuff toys into the metal

(45:17):
gate of the X pen so that it hasto be pulled free or I stuff
them into the center holes of the climb tables to be pulled
out toys within toys like I do abunch of different things in
there and then I just let them go.
And what made me think about this is my whole intention with
this was I want you to entertainyourself when I'm not there
because it's a great thing to have them learn how to self

(45:39):
entertain. It's actually very, very
important. So I want to make it easy for
them at the beginning, but I find myself watching every time
that I do this. Thankfully I have a camera
because I do actually want to beabsent.
I don't want to be there. I want them to engage with it
all on their own. But I will watch on my camera.
And it's more entertaining than TV.
It's hilarious. And it's like, oh look, he

(45:59):
found, he found. Oh look, he got on top of the
table. Oh, he's climbing.
Look at that. It's super fun.
What a great idea. I think that there are so many
fun things that are so easy and so cheap that we can do with our
dogs that really don't take a whole lot of effort.
We've been working on scent workthis year and I put a video up
on YouTube how to teach your doga scent and just being able to

(46:22):
teach it in different containers, teach different
scents. And we're not quite to the point
where he is able to find it yet away from me.
But if I put out three differentcontainers and I put it in one,
he's going to figure out which one it's in.
I found those really cool ones on there on Amazon.
They're little silver ones that have screw on lids so you can't

(46:43):
see directly if there's something in it or not.
So he actually has to smell and then he'll go over and he does
his cute little thing. I didn't teach it.
When you teach a dog to target it, you tap it with their nose.
My dog goes over, he nudges it with his nose and then he slaps
his hand down and I'm like, OK, it's that one.
Nose work is and I'm saying nosework because I have not ventured

(47:05):
into the AKC version of. I haven't.
Either so nose work was the original name, but I just I
actually started nose work almost three years ago with my
senior dog because he was my very competitive agility dog.
And I know so many people that are really involved in nose work
and they were like, why don't you do nose work?
And I said, it's going to be hisretirement sport.

(47:25):
And it was as soon as we stoppedagility, I started nose work
with him and it was funny because he was 11 at this point.
And so his hardest thing in nosework was continuing to search
without ever checking back with me or asking for help because
his entire life was focused on, hey, if you have a question in
the environment, look at me. And so he'd go out and he'd be

(47:46):
like, I can't find it mom, it's like, no, you got to keep
searching. So I have actually started it
with my girls now my younger onethat dog Andrew passed.
But my my girls I am doing this with now.
And because we're starting earlier, they are much more
independent with their searches.And I actually train with one of
the Co founders of the sport, which is really cool.

(48:06):
But it's also interesting because I have really only
trained with her and I see lots of people training on social
media and stuff and it's so vastly different from we do.
Well, now I don't know where to go for pointers.
We're going to have to have another conversation about this.
Now, a lot of different ways to teach things and it's
fascinating actually to see it. And I have learned so much more

(48:29):
about dogs through nose work, which is also really, really
cool. It's been a great experience for
me. And because we're talking about
dog sports and this is somethingthat is just really, really cool
with any one of these sports, you learn so much more about
your dog and honestly about yourself.
I mean, that's one of the thingsthat I love about dog sports.
Really cool. I'm not 100% certain on this

(48:51):
statistic so don't quote me guys, but take a look at it.
I believe it's 68% of dogs. We've bred them and trained them
and changed them so much genetically now that 68% of dogs
don't know how to use their nosecorrectly anymore.
I haven't heard that. OK, so I'm.
Very interested in how that's measured.
I'm also interested in how that's measured.
I just, I learned that when I was taking one of our first

(49:14):
scent courses and I was like, that's honestly kind of
terrifying. And and that's because from what
I understand, from what I learned, it's because we don't
encourage for a gene. They don't have to hunt for
their meals. They don't have to use their
nose to survive like they would in the wild.
So they just don't use their nose unless they're like, oh,
that's food cooking or oh, that's my dinner or whatever.

(49:35):
That may be it. Makes sense.
I mean, it does make sense. I still, I still am interested
in how it's measured to say not correctly, but it's my science
brain. One of the things that I love
about the enrichment pen becauseI treats all over.
It's fascinating to watch because puppies are always
starting to experience differentsenses in different ways.

(49:56):
With younger puppies, you toss atreat and they just don't even
follow it. They they have to figure out
that tracking thing as they're growing up and the same thing
happens with sniffing. They'll drop a treat on the
ground and they'll kind of startlooking for it, but they're not
able to yet identify it. What has been so cool for me is
setting up this enrichment pen for my puppy and watching him

(50:18):
start to sniff for the trees. That's been really cool actually
because with puppies you don't see that as much unless you're
actively asking them to do things like go and find your
food in this environment, which is actually what I am doing with
the enrichment pen. Amongst other things.
Like I said, I I put climb tables in there.
I also put Fit Paws equipment somy dogs are inadvertently

(50:40):
working on muscle building and balance without me being there.
I am a work smarter, not harder person.
In fact, I will set up Fit equipment.
I used to set it up at the window that my dogs would always
go and watch the squirrels out of.
So I'd set up several different fit paws things.
So like the half peanut, the fitbone, a bunch of different
things. And so my dogs would put their

(51:01):
front paws up on it to look out the window and they would get
these really nice stretches while they were doing it.
And I was like, there's your PT for the day.
Yeah, I try to be really smart about these things.
That's amazing. Caning and conditioning is
something that we don't talk about enough at people don't
understand. You shouldn't just expect your
dog to go on a five mile run with you, and you shouldn't

(51:21):
expect your dog to. Go crazy on this agility course.
You have to train your dog's body just like you would train
your own body physically to do those things.
Yes, you do In agility, especially the higher and
competitors and agility, it is very focused on Fit paws is is a
huge thing in the agility community and the only place

(51:42):
I've ever seen in fit paws vendors in person is that
agility competitions and they make a bunch of different.
It has become a major focus because in agility, as our dogs
get faster and more competitive,injuries are more likely and we
have to keep their bodies in really good shape.
And this is something that people don't necessarily know,

(52:03):
but a lot of the major competitors are doing lots of
physical therapy conditioning with their dogs.
And that may include things likeunderwater treadmill, which I
did a lot of with my dog before we went to nationals because he
was almost 11 when we went to nationals, AKC agility
nationals, he went a couple of times, but that was the last
time. And bodywork and massages is

(52:24):
also very common. I go to someone locally here who
does very specific bodywork. And then there's three different
canine massage people that I would book at the big events.
But the big agility events have literally rows of people doing
canine massage. And the person that I prefer to
go to at those big events, he sends out an e-mail about when

(52:46):
his books will be open for that event.
Well, he's sold out completely booked within 5 minutes.
That's insane. Yeah, it's wild.
OK, I just want to go now to an agility show and watch all of
the dogs get massaged on the tables, because I didn't know
that that was a thing until you just said that.
You don't see it in local competitions usually.
Usually you only see it at the big competitions because local

(53:08):
competitions they just don't getenough business.
But the bigger competitions theydo because you want to be
potentially in between runs. That the person that I go to
actually developed trigger pointmassage for dogs.
We learn all of these things about dogs and agility, all of
this physical stuff that we are usually kind of unaware of.
We become hyper aware of in agility.

(53:29):
And yes, it is very fun. I will next time I'm at a big
and I will make sure to take a little video of all of the dogs
getting massages. Please do.
Yeah, please do. I I'm going to have to add that
to my bucket list of things thatI need to do because I need to
see all the dogs laid out on tables getting massaged.
That seems like heaven in a picture right there.
For me, yeah, no, it is. It's pretty fantastic actually.

(53:52):
I think one of the most impressive things that you see
at big competitions like that isthe warm up jump.
So there will be a warm up jump outside of the ring and
depending on the venue, this maybe blocked off or it may be
completely open. A lot of times it's places where
the other competitors and dogs are walking through.
And I think most people would beshocked to see these two jumps

(54:14):
kind of out in the middle of nowhere and dogs and people all
over the place walking through. And then you see a dog taking
the jump and you're like, I don't even know where that dog's
person is. And then you see them like go to
that person. Oh, OK, there they are.
Oh, they're sending them over the jump again.
It seems like. Oh my gosh, there's so much like
how many dogs would be losing their mind in this environment?
But they're not. They're literally listening to

(54:34):
their person going over jump, going right past every other
distraction that's around there.And it's boring.
I think for a lot of people, it's just something you don't
see very often. And I remember, I think that
this came up really big because somebody commented on one of my
videos saying that agility trials are really not high
distraction environments. Tell me that you've never been

(54:55):
to a big agility competition. I have a dog that I would love
to be able to do that kind of stuff with because I think he
would be really good at it. In fact, we've we've gotten a
cheap agility course off of Amazon and he is really good at
it. He's reactive and he's dog
selective and all those things. So we do it at home because
that's what works for him. But we found a way for him to

(55:18):
have that enrichment and that diversity in his activities
instead of just running him silly with the ball like I was.
It's just one of those things that you have to learn and you
have to pivot. Now the listeners know that
you're a really good account to talk to about this.
Obviously, we can all learn frommy experiences because I was
definitely there. I really do think agility is the

(55:42):
best form of exercise that you can give a dog because it is
both physical and mental. Because of that, it is so much
more exhausting and in all of the right ways.
We are tiring out the body, but we are also satisfying and
tiring out the mind. And that is so crucial to most
of these dogs, especially the ones that are labeled high
energy, is that they've got a big mental capacity and we have

(56:06):
to work with that. Occasionally I get people that
have a hard time relating mentalexercise and enrichment to
actually being tired, but we canthink about it for ourselves.
Let's go back to college days. If I sit down and study for an
exam, it's exhausting. I didn't move anywhere, but I'm
going to be exhausted after a little bit because it is
mentally tiring. Our brain is working.

(56:27):
We are still getting that exercise, just in a different
way. For us, the big light bulb
moment was when I started trick training.
Yeah. And I was like, my God, you are
way too smart. That has been the problem the
whole time. You are too smart.
So now he knows how to do a bunch of tricks and he's really
good at it and he gets really excited about it.

(56:50):
And you know what? It's funny that you said that.
I was talking about all of this stuff with an enrichment pens
and stuff that I do for puppies.The one thing that I don't do
for puppies is I don't give thempuzzle toys really, really.
Because when they learn how to figure out those puzzle toys
really early, they also learn how to figure out opening
drawers and cabinets and gettinginto things.

(57:11):
Not all of them will, but the smart ones will.
So I don't really want them to figure out those types of toys
until they're older. That's like a really weird.
And that's one that not everybody does.
Most people don't, but I do. I got fits this puzzle toy.
It came in one of our mind Game of the Month toys and it's this
hexagon. And inside it has felt strips of

(57:33):
fabric, and they're tied and they come out the little holes
in the hexagon, and then you roll the treats up in them and
stick them in the holes all around.
I didn't know that there was anyone marketing that toy.
There's an old version of that that we all used to make it
home. OK, well, I mean, it's
definitely easy to make it home.You definitely could.
It was just something that came in one of our toy boxes.

(57:53):
It was great to watch him the first couple of times, pull it
out with his teeth and unroll the things.
Too smart. Now if I get that toy out, he
just shakes it so all the trees go fly.
I'm like, Oh well, we're done with that toy, so.
The way that we always used to do, you know, the holy roller
balls. It's a rubber ball, but it just
looks like a net. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you would take pieces of felt, put treats in it and stuff

(58:16):
it inside of there. And that was the homemade
version of that. That God, I think I learned
about like 12 years ago. Same thing with snuffle mats.
We were doing those forever ago too.
But it was only recently that they really kind of picked up
steam. And for a while I was super like
me about snuffle mats. I was like, that's boring.
The more I got into nose work, actually, the more I got
interested in snuffle mats and how satisfying they can be for

(58:39):
dogs. And so now I make them myself,
because, you know, why not? Why not?
Exactly. Well, we are going to have to
have you come back, Catherine, because I feel like we could get
really far into enrichment. I would love to get into
behavior with you, and I'm sure the listeners will love it too.
But for today, what would you like to leave the listeners
with? That dog sports are very

(59:00):
accessible. You just have to figure out the
way it's going to work best for you.
It might not be a group class, it might be a private session,
it might be an online class where you just play around
around with stuff in your yard. But there are a lot of different
ways to do it. I think that it's worth it.
It's worth giving it a shot because there's no downside to

(59:20):
it's all good stuff. It's all relationship building
plus exercising plus skill building.
There's so many great things about it.
Why not? Even if it's in your backyard.
I teach agility and I teach rally and I I teach all of these
things as well. Group classes are also
fantastic. But for the dogs who might
struggle in that environment, private sessions, online
sessions, all of those things can be done.

(59:41):
And I invite everybody to get involved because man, it is so
much fun. It's addicting.
It is my goal is to have the next dog be a sports dog that's
involved in all this stuff. I think I would love it if I got
the right dog. They would love it.
And Oh yeah, just. So exciting.
Well, it was phenomenal having you here today.
I again, I appreciate you takingthe time to chat with us and we

(01:00:03):
will see you guys next week on Straight Up Dog Talk.
Straight Up Dog Talk was createdby Emily Breslin.
It is edited and produced under the supervision of Straight Up
Dog Talk, LLC and Emily Breslin.If you're enjoying this podcast,
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Looking for more honest and relatable dog content?

(01:00:24):
Check out our sister show Unpacked with Jerry Sheriff and
Madison Simpson. Thanks for listening to Straight
Up Dog Top. See you next week.