Startline

This episode captures a little bit of Michele and me geeking out on dog behavior and a whole lot of great information about how you can help your hyper, reactive or stressed-out dog in agility by letting them sniff.

We bust myths about confusing dogs and allowing them to sniff, we arm you with a ton of information you can gather about your dog and we offer you an insight into the benefits of offering your dog the opportunities to tap into their innate behavior.

I knew from my own experience how beneficial nosework was to my agility journey with my dogs but when I have a conversation with Michele Ellertson, I realized how much this indeed dovetails with my previous interview with Noreen Bennett.

Learn and hopefully listen when we tell you that your dog isn't being an asshole when they run off and sniff, rather choose to see behavior not as bad, but as information. What is your dog telling you when they drop down and sniff?

Michele offers us ways to train in a way that changes the picture for the dog and taps into the different drivers and unleashes a different experience. This is for any aspect of our dog's lives but specifically, you can apply this to agility.

I also realize how fortunate I am to have such an incredibly knowledgeable, creative, and skilled nosework instructor. I was hooked years ago just dropping into a class. Don't worry if you aren't local, Michele teaches online, travels to teach tons of seminars as a CNWI (instructor), judges as a NACSW Certifying Official, and NACSW Trial Representative, and brings over 20 years of dog training experience. She's lively, passionate, and just wants to help your dog by getting you to get out there to give them something to sniff.

To learn more about Michele Ellertson you can check out her company website, https://www.thedogspace.net/

Noreen Bennett of PawPrint Trials and I just gave a seminar on the impacts of stress in our agility journey, called Stressed for Success. While she might be the most prominent trial secretary in New England, Noreen also has had a 25-year front-row seat watching stress in the ring and figuring out her own with her dogs over her lifetime.  

Some of us don't understand why our dogs act differently at trials, many of us know that it's stress making our Fido slow down, wander off or avoid obstacles but most of us don't know how to make that stress go away. We often just move it around the ring.

Knowing that our dogs are riding the stress-struggle bus, Noreen and I discuss what important things you can do to help your dog because that is exactly what they are asking for; HELP! When you have trial stress, first recognize it and next, stop asking your dog to do something they can't.

There weren't enough hours in the day to cover the solutions to removing the stress, which will be in another episode, but listen and learn how you can recognize what it looks like and what you can stop doing immediately to make the agility journey for your dog better. 

We highly recommend reading or listening to this book, On Talking Terms with Dogs  by Turid Rugaas https://www.audible.com/pd/On-Talking-Terms-with-Dogs-Audiobook/B09H3N3K8Q?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

As Noreen says, agility is like a giant 500-piece puzzle of a blue sky. Often you are left just picking pieces to see what fits. We want to help make that puzzle easier for you and your dog. 

Hey agility addicts! We're BACK ... AGAIN. 

Sorry for another hiatus, let's just say that life has interrupted our podcasting plans again. But never fear, we aren't going anywhere. 

This episode covers the 2021 AKC Agility Invitationals, which we BOTH were fortunate enough to attend this year. This was Cara's third time attending and Michele's first! Hear about initial reactions, expectations and results. We had different goals and we both learned some things for our next agility adventures. We recap the event from the drive there and back and talk about some of our friends' journeys too. Want to know how you can try to qualify? Curious about the vendors and the swag? What about finals and what it takes to make it there? We cover it all! 

We're glad to be back... AGAIN! 

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We're BACK! 

Sorry for the slight hiatus but Michele and I have had a crazy summer. We added puppies, travel, job changes, more projects, more trial work and so on and so forth! We are busy but we wanted to get back to what we love, talking about agility!

We're thrilled to bring you the regional differences episode. We posted a survey and got a lot of great responses. Sorry, we didn't say it was AKC specific, some of you took offense to that but we've never hidden that in our podcast.

Listen to what the respondents have to say about what they call their contacts, handling maneuvers, what services people primarily trial on, how late trials run and so much more! 

We're excited to be back! 

Have fun playing your favorite game in a new place! Michele and Cara share a bunch of tips on how you can travel safely to agility trials outside of your home-turf. 

Learn how to make a good trial great. What factors fill trials, what makes exhibitors keep coming back year after year?

Here is a the checklist for trial chairs. We're here to help you with ideas on how to fill trials in your area, keep exhibitors coming back and even marketing for you. What can you do to help the novice exhibitors who are the future of our sport? We want to help with that!

Novice exhibitors, here's a checklist of what can make your experience better. Did you have a good or bad experience at a trial? We want to help make all of your trialing amazing.

Share your ideas as well. These checklists barely scrape the surface. 

Get a blind review and reaction to Cara's experience at the AKC Agility Premier Cup, meaning Michele had no idea how things went! We usually talk before we record but we decided to go with a natural reaction. Learn about the amazing event in this episode, the happy the humbling and the haunting. 

We couldn't call this just a judge interview because Michael Teh is so much more than that! Mike is a judge, trial secretary and trainer. And because of his diversity in the agility community, we're going to need another interview with him or more. 

This is a great surface dive into all the different aspects of an agility trial from someone that wears many hats. At the end of the day Mike has a great message, no matter what hat he's wearing, he just wants us to enjoy!

Michele and Cara had a blast not only interviewing a judge but a judge who was in the middle of an assignment at a trial where they were both entered. Michele masters her MACH while Cara masters her NQ's. It's a fun interview covering topics spanning juniors to course design to memorable gifts clubs have given. Listen, laugh and learn with us. 

We had a double whammy this episode and had the privilege of interviewing AKC rep Arlene Spooner. In order to become a rep, you have to have judged and typically reps then can no longer judge. Thanks to the paindemic, unusual circumstances allowed an AKC agility rep to get back out there and judge. We get to learn from both sides, what it's like to be a judge, be a rep and then get to judge during the pandemic.

Arlene like most reps is instrumental in not only reviewing courses so we can play each weekend but she spends a ton of time on projects like the National and Invitational. These are huge events that require a ton of work to organize. So next time you see a rep at a trial, don't feel like they're big brother watching over us, remember they were once judges who love the sport enough to devote their time to reviewing courses and making certain we get to participate in everything we love about the great sport of agility!