21
===
Megan: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome to Fostering Excellence in Agility, the podcast. I'm your host, competitor, coach, and mentor Megan Foster. I help agility enthusiasts focus on the small details of training and behavior while still having a clear understanding of their big picture. Join me as I take you through key elements of dog agility training, competing and teaching, and how you can take action today to start improving your skills within the sport.
Let's get started. Hey y'all. Welcome to today's episode where I want to talk about assessing your communication system and how to add. New information and new tools to that handling system. It happened all the time when I was working with clients in person [00:01:00] that if they attended a seminar or they read something in a magazine or saw it on a YouTube video, wherever they acquired this new information, there was always a little bit of bumpiness.
In their approach to adding that new information. So sometimes as coaches or instructors, we have some secrets that we keep from our students because we have to be careful about how we. drip down the knowledge that we're giving them because they can only take on so much responsibility at once. And while I'm definitely getting to unpack more of that coaching process in a few episodes later, there is something to be said for.
Megan (3): How we can help our students apply new [00:02:00] information, and that's mostly what I want to talk about today, especially when that new information is not coming directly from you and their weekly class or their weekly lesson. And sometimes that information comes from such a great source, but maybe you aren't even sure.
Megan: What they learned or what they're supposed to be applying and maybe how it's being explained to you is also unclear, and that can leave us in a tough spot as coaches. And also it can leave the student in a tough spot when they're not sure how they are supposed to, to apply this new information. That worked really well at the seminar or worked really well in the examples that were given in.
Article or YouTube video or wherever they saw it in action. So I want to talk to the students first, and since [00:03:00] we are all still students of the sport, I am talking to all of us, myself included. So when I. , learn something new or take in some new information. Maybe it's not completely new. Maybe it's just a different perspective or a different solution to a problem that is happening with my own dogs or something that I've seen before.
I have to ask myself, does this tool, does this information solve a problem I'm currently facing? If that answer is yes, then we're going to make this a priority to determine what to do with this new information. If the answer is no, I may still go down the route of how to apply this new information. I just might not make it a priority.
I might have it kind of in the back burner as something fun to [00:04:00] explore and experiment with, but for the sake of today, let's say. It does solve a problem I'm currently facing. So then the next question I have to ask myself is, is this a sustainable solution? And this is where we really have to zoom out and start to think big picture.
And remember, if you're here, we are here to do big picture thinking because that is how we bring our most excellent selves to each training session, each competition. Learning session. Each time we train someone, we bring our most excellent selves when we keep sight of the big picture. So we need to determine if this is something, if this tool is something that I can use in training, is this a tool that I can use in trialing?
Is this a tool that I can consistently apply to a [00:05:00] variety of situ? If the answer is no, then you may have to modify this tool, or this may be as far as you get with this tool that you're like, Well, it does solve a problem for me, but it's not sustainable. I won't be able to use it consistently, and therefore I'm not going to make it a priority to adapt it into.
Communication system. I'm not gonna take my precious time and training resources and use it on this tool, but let's say it is. Let's say it's, I can visualize using it in classes. I can visualize using it in the courses that I like to run. And I'm really excited to continue applying it and figuring out where else I can use this solution.
So then I'm gonna ask myself this third question, Do I need a lot of additional resources in order to apply this solution? So for [00:06:00] this, does it require a lot of time for me to apply it? Do I need to sign up for additional classes? buy additional equipment or get some additional coaching. So how much of those resources, because that's really important to my, my bottom line when we are talking about big picture, do I
have
Megan: the resources required to apply this new solution to my communication system?
And assuming that we're still on track, we're like, Yep, it's, you know, it, it is gonna take a little bit of time, but it's time that. Have to give to my training plans and I'm here for it because it solves such a problem that I'm having. It's really important to me. Does the solution conflict with anything else in my toolbox?
And this one goes last because there's some wiggle room here, obviously. Maybe some of you might wanna ask this first, [00:07:00] and that might. , get rid of all of the other questions completely. But I, I leave this one last for myself just because I want to have enough flexibility and open mindedness in my communication system that I don't accidentally gloss over.
Really, really great tools that might come my. So I personally view, view this one last just because I want to be open to as many new ideas as possible if you don't , want as many new ideas as possible because there was probably a time in my agility career where I didn't have the bandwidth for a ton of new ideas.
I probably did ask. that question first. Does this conflict with anything that I'm currently doing? Because if the answer was yes, I would just scrap it and look for a different [00:08:00] solution, and that worked for me for a really long time. And so I do open that for everyone to kind of order these questions in the way that makes sense for you and how you would like to take a look at these different tools.
So some of you have probably heard these questions, and if you are a little bit new to agility or maybe you are kind of new to training on your own, maybe you've usually have access to instructors and maybe you're doing more online stuff, you might be feeling like you don't know if you could answer these questions, and that is definitely where.
A sounding board, a really knowledgeable friend, an instructor, a coach, anyone that you can ping pong these ideas off of is super valuable in this situation to kind of help you talk out [00:09:00] if this is going to be a good thing for you to add or not. And so I'm gonna give you a couple of examples and you.
Take yourself through these questions. So one example of a problem that I see commonly is that the dog is no longer stopping on their contacts in competition. And a very common solution that I hear, um, and see given on the internet is to, well swap to Redding contacts. That's obviously what your dog would rather.
and so let's go through those questions one more time. Does this solve a problem I'm currently facing? Well, probably if they're not stopping, they're already halfway there to running. Right? , Let's keep going. Is there, is this a sustainable solution? Absolutely. [00:10:00] If you take the time to. Truly retrain those contacts to running contacts so that we really have to unpack that.
When you ask yourself, Do I need a lot of additional resources in order to apply this solution? Well probably, uh, you're going to need access to the equipment needed to train a running contact. You're going to. Potentially the funds to sign up for a class, your, or coaching or whatever is required. Maybe it's ring rentals, maybe it's just having to take time away from other training projects in order to retrain one obstacle or two obstacles.
Okay. And then obviously, um, does the solution conflict and is it gonna be sustainable? Maybe it, maybe swapping from stop context to running context doesn't [00:11:00] conflict with anything. I don't think it would really conflict with much other than it might put additional strains on your other handling cues because now you can't rely on the dog's stopping.
and having that time to catch up or get into your next position. So there are some things that, some additional things you would sacrifice by throwing in the towel with your stopped contacts and swapping to running. So those are the questions that I would ask myself when I'm looking to apply a specific solution like that.
And then another example that came up frequently. And it still continues to come up, is that especially when Blind crosses started to become very popular again in dog agility, they also started to become more and more popular to use them on tight turns. So from the dog's perspective, dogs will naturally react [00:12:00] to blind crosses with a lot of extension.
Therefore, naturally, those handling elements that are used in a blind. Don't cue much of a turn, but we can teach dogs many things and we can modify the handling elements in a way that we can make turning tighter with a blind cross, make more sense to them. But we still have to decide if. All of that additional training is something that we want to put into our communication system.
So again, let's start at the top. So the solution is teaching the dog how to read tight turns via a blind cross cue. And so we have to ask ourselves, does this solve a problem I'm currently facing? If your problem is you're having a hard. Cueing tight turns in a timely way with a front cross, [00:13:00] then absolutely.
I could definitely see where this sounds very attractive and probably worked really well during the seminar that you observed it or tried it for the first time.
Is this a sustainable solu solution? Uh, again, I can see this as super attractive because if you already feel like you can be far enough ahead that you're using front crosses, they're just not quite on time, then you probably can sustainably do blind crosses on time in those same situations. So it's still looking attractive and I can see how it.
Point, it pulls people towards this, right? Third is, do I need a lot of additional resources in order to apply the solution? This is where it's going to be, in my opinion, it's gonna vary the most between teams, [00:14:00] because if it's a really experienced handler that's going to pick up on the timing really, really easily, you're going to require less repetition than.
A handler that is not as experienced and is going to have to work really hard at practicing the timing in order for this to be something that the dog can learn, um, reliably. And obviously we also have to. Um, invest in the training plan. So again, the less experienced you are, you might have to reach out to another professional in order to get the training plan, versus if you're experienced, you might be able to determine that training plan for yourself and kind of troubleshoot and make adjustments as you go.
So this is where it's gonna be the most individual. I suspect. And then does this solution conflict with anything else in my toolbox? And then this is the one that I [00:15:00] urge people to think about the most. And for this specific solution, which I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but you do have to make sure.
If you are training your dog to turn tight with a blind cross queue, you have to make extra, extra sure that you're not losing your ability to queue extension with the blind cross queue. So those are the things that might require an outside set of eyes to make sure that you are accounting for all the details within those little.
Um, and maybe the answer is that you won't use a blind cross for doing extension. Maybe it's as simple as that, that you want to just change how your dog views blind crosses across the board. Or maybe there's a different set of cues and pre cues that you can help the dog understand the difference. [00:16:00] Those are the details that would need to be worked out and.
If you were my student coming to me with this, these would be details that I would even have a hard time working out with you because I've never done it before. It's not something that I've chosen to add to my communication system, so I would have to spend some extra time puzzling it out as well, and that.
pretty common. I think that if a student brings some new information to the table, if the instructor is not familiar with it, we need to be upfront with the student and say, I don't feel comfortable. This is what I think I would do with that information. Or, Here is someone that I trust to help you work that.
And so I think that's really important as instructors or [00:17:00] coaches, is to really set the boundary of where your expertise is best suited. So then when you are competing, there are sometimes solutions to problems we're having in competition that we don't explicitly train for. And so, , these solutions might look like doing, executing a handling move just a tiny bit early or kind of borderline early, and it's borderline kind of breaking the rules of commitment.
And may or maybe it's a little bit of a. Lessening of a specific criteria in order to be successful on the course, things like that. So solutions that we inadvertently add to our [00:18:00] communication system that are specific to trials, we need to be very careful about those because, If those types of solutions, blurring criteria, blurring the lines of commitment, doing things a little bit early, or even queuing things late in order to make a competition situation more successful, that needs to be happening on a very, very, very rare occasion if it's happening frequently.
And it contradicts everything that you train and kind of strive for. You are going to develop problems and you're going to develop problems that only exist in competition. So we do need to always be weighing the pros and cons of immediate gains versus long term gains. And if [00:19:00] it's. Bandaid solution that you're using in competition because it's obviously what's needed.
And if you're using it more than rarely, you should just train it and add it to your communication system. Full stop. And so this applies to, um, blurring the lines of a commitment of commitment. So queuing turns, uh, maybe an obstacle earlier than you normally would because the spacing and the dog's trajectory.
warrants that maybe it's queuing something a little bit later and doing, giving the, and not giving proactive cues, but giving most of the information on the ground after the dog has landed. Maybe that's to, again, set a contact approach up correctly or weave, pull approach up correctly, or just give the dog more space to turn between the obstacles.
But if you do that a lot, the dog [00:20:00] is going to start to rely on the late information, the information happening after landing rather than before. And you could run into problems there. And also any sort of blurry lines with criteria as far as like self releasing the contact or, um, not waiting for the dog to stop completely before you release and things like that.
Because some of. Sometimes we do those things in order to help the dog in different situations, uh, or we do it a few times to make sure that we get the score that we need because it's team and, or it's some gambler's event where it helps us to save as much time as possible on the contact obstacles. We need to make sure that those are a rarity.
Or we need to be training for them before they become trial [00:21:00] only problems. And one final note as an instructor or coach is that we need to be very clear about new ideas that we present to our students. We need to make sure that we have thought those things completely through and that we've done a little bit.
Exploring and experimenting on our own before we just throw new ideas out there because our students really are relying on us to give them the information that best applies to them and the information that they need to be successful. So if you are an instructor that is an information junkie as I am.
Just give those ideas and information time to settle into your brain before you start introducing those ideas to your students, [00:22:00] especially if your students are less experienced or new to training or new to the sport of dog agility. Okay, that's all I have for today. Good luck and have fun assessing your communication system and learning to add new tools to your tool.
Thanks for listening. Please subscribe and leave me a review. If you'd like to support this podcast, head over to synergy dog sports.com/community to access bonus content and to get your questions answered via podcast episodes and other social media content. If you'd like to know more about what I'm up to and what's coming.
Make sure to bookmark my website www.synergydogsports.com.
