What If Your Best Search Is The One You Enjoy- STOP feeling overwhelmed with a Zen Flow State Search !

Transcript

Welcome And The Zen Goal

Speaker 0:10

Hey everybody, welcome to our podcast with K9 Cent Fix. I'm here. This is Jill Kovacevich, and I'm here with Alex Woodroffe. Say hello, Alex. Hello, guys. So we're really excited today. This is kind of one of those topics where as a listening audience, you might even go, what are they talking about? But we really think that it's helpful for us to also talk about reaching a Zen flow state with our searches. So our topic is stop feeling overwhelmed, achieve a Zen flow state search. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that, about what flow state is in your search and about really getting to a zen piece with it. And kind of what do we mean by that? It's not just kumbaya and touchy feely. Um, it's actually we actually have some words that we're gonna use to define what we mean by a zen flow state search. Yes, yes. So, Alice, why don't you give us some of your thoughts?

What Flow State Feels Like

Speaker 1:10

This stemmed out of a conversation you had with students. Yeah, yeah. So that feeling of being overwhelmed, can't keep track of where you've been, trying to figure out how many hides you've got, right? That kind of frustration that we might have that comes from feeling a little overwhelmed in that search area, maybe not understanding what you're seeing, maybe feeling stressed. And so when we're thinking about that, a flow state is basically aiming to have that clarity in the moment. So, like flow state itself is not a new concept. It's been around, I think, 1970. And it is basically describing an engaged activity where you might lose track of time and a sense of effortless control. And so if we think of it in terms of what we want in a search, effortless control sounds pretty good to me because it means pretty connected with my dog in that moment. It's a nice partnership. I'm seeing constant information coming in and I'm able to understand it and see it and respond to it in time to be the partner for my dog. So if I'm aiming for that flow state, it should feel like this nice little zen moment. You're in the moment, you might be tuning everything else out and being really able to focus on what the dog's doing. And it really is doing that dance, right?

The Dog Leads The Dance

Speaker 2:26

Yeah. We've talked about that a little bit with nose work that during that search, you know, it's you're holding the leash, even if you're off-leash, you still feel truly connected with your dance partner who is your dog, right? So maybe fully engaged in your search with your dog that is effortless participation with control and confidence. Because as Alex pointed out, we really like the idea of effortless control, right? And by control, we don't mean that static do what I want to do, because it's that partnership. You just engage in the partnership being very much in control of the search. Does that make sense? I like to think of it like so. You said dance, right? It's like the dance, and that comes from being able to respond to the dog and not necessarily do the move before the dog. The dog's leading the dance, right? So if we think of flow state, I'm really aiming for that ability to see that information coming in, those changes of behavior, and trusting them and understanding them and being able to respond to them. Like a dog slowing down and starting to change direction slightly. If I'm in that flow state, I'm able to see that tiny little moment start. So then I can respond and it feels like I'm there with them versus if I'm just observing, maybe I'm not moving at all. Maybe I'm just blindly just following my dog. And so I might see it and go, oh, why didn't they change direction? But we're still walking in behind our dogs, which is then kind of taking over the search because we're saying go forward, don't follow your nose. And we might not know it. We might not realize that. But that kind of little tiny takeover moment can cause some problems, right? That can become some of this moments where we think we're just following and it ends up where we're taking over and we don't realize that that's happening in that moment. Well, and I really like that idea of dance, right? Because at least if we think of it as a dance, and granted, you could go do line dancing all by yourself, and then you're just measuring whether or not you're doing the correct steps, et cetera, by everyone else, and you're not bumping into them, right? But we're talking about the dance where you have a partner, right? Yes, right, where you have your dog and your dog is in the lead to communicate to you the odor information, right? So your response to the dog is in response to the dog's response to odor. So, how do we like that, right? So it really is the dance of deciphering odor to source. So that'll kind of give you a visual of because I think that when we talk about that effortless control, often as a handler, what do we do? You know, maybe we go into an elite search and we pop off a couple hides. Alert, yes, alert, yes. Okay, now where do I need to go? My dog is going in one direction and my head is too busy on a swivel looking around behind me, or maybe even looking at my timer, or maybe even right checking to see if I've got my treat in my hand again for my next, you know, we just sort of yeah, like momentarily disengage. So, really, what we're talking about is when you can do all of those things kind of effortlessly, and it's still right. It's like you treat your dog at the at the hide, your hand naturally, just whether you how whatever you do, and this is also dog and handler specific. We're not suggesting you have to do any one thing, but whatever that dance is for your next move to move to your next hide, it all sort of goes together and you are still within the dance, you're still within the moment with the dog, right? You stop worrying about the search area and and what you haven't covered because the dance will naturally take you around, at least at that moment in time, right? Around the search, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and that you stop looking for the hide, right? How many times have we done that where it's like, oh, look, my dog's showing interest in that chair. I wonder if that's if if that's where the hide, right? I think it's there, yeah, for sure. And you stop trying to predict like where right singularly predict, right? If you are in the dance and in the zen moment flow state with your dog, the two of you are working on the odor information to locate source. Agreed, agreed.

Everyday Flow State Examples

Speaker 6:55

So, like flow state is not a new concept, right? So it applies outside of dog work, and I have a feeling that you guys have achieved a flow state without realizing that you have. So, some of the examples is like doing the dishes because you might be listening to a good song or cooking, and you're listening to a good song and you're really enjoying what's happening, and you're really just in the moment. That's a flow state because you aren't really thinking about time, you're not thinking about yourself, you have your goal ahead of you of making the meal, finishing the dishes, whatever it might be. Vacuuming is another one that people seem to get into a flow state to do, or maybe a really good shower where you're doing, okay, the shampoo, the conditioner, doing all the things. And you just get into a little bit of a flow state where you're not actually thinking about all the individual pieces. You're not overanalyzing, you're just receiving information, whatever it's textual or it's sight or smell in all those different situations. When we're talking about nose work, it's asking for that same kind of loss of self where we start really thinking about just what is the information coming in, and here's my response to it, and being able to just stay in that moment. It's a very fluid motion. A really good example of that is for those of us who drive, right? And maybe we drive quite a bit every day. There's even times when you don't even remember certain parts of the road, right? And yet you did everything correct. You had your foot on the gas, you applied the brake when it needed, you steered the steering wheel when it needed, right? It wasn't all bisected into these separate pieces of activity. Oh, what I put the blinker on now, right? It just all becomes this smooth, fluid, effortless control of that moment in time. So, okay, let's use that word of fluent or fluent, right? So if we're talking about a flow state, we basically need to have a lot of what we're doing fluent, meaning we don't have to like actively think about that behavior for ourselves, leash management or following our dog or what we're seeing. It's much harder to achieve, maybe at the lower levels when we still haven't figured out how to hold the leash in our hands or what cookie and what pocket the cookie is in. But once those things start to become fluent, where we know those things and we don't have to actively think about it, just like putting your foot down on the gas pedal. Do I have to figure out is it the left pedal or the right pedal? When you stop thinking about those things, now we can start reaching more of that flow state because you're not actively trying to figure out all the little pieces. So are we really talking about, oh, you won't get to Zen until you have your searches perfected? No, not at all. Because at the specific level, right? So flow state can happen at the NW1 level if you both are prepared for that level and understand your goals and you are working at that level with your dog. I don't think you necessarily can't have that. I think it just requires some practice where we have to repetition a little bit. You can't just be doing the sport for a month and then expect a flow state. I do think that we need to have that repetition in there. And perhaps it's also the accumulation of small moments, right? Right. So we start out with just that moment in time, just the moment in time. And I'm even going to suggest that maybe even if you're just starting out and you have that one moment where, oh my gosh, I totally got of when I should reward my dog. And it worked and it felt correct. And my and my coach or my instructor or my training partner or even myself went, yay, that was that felt good, right? Right. My dog responded, you know, in a favorable manner and moved on to the next, right? So you have those itty bitty moments in time where you go, wow, that was really cool, right? Yeah. We're not just talking about the fascination of the dog and the massive skill set of old faction and detection, right? Because that can just that's the other piece of journey. That can just put you into that deer in the headlights, right? Where you feel like your whole brain just went to mush because at one moment in time you're realizing my dog is extremely skilled, and I have no idea how my dog is doing what they're doing, right? I mean, specifically how, right? Yeah, but I think if we can find that amazement, and holy crap, they can do this, it can bring you into it because the feeling of amazement does allow us to let go of self a little bit and enjoy the moment and be a little bit more present. And I think letting go of how and where and all the pieces and trying to overanalyze it, that's where it can bog us down a little bit. Well, I definitely think that's really a good point because I think as human beings, we are hugely visual, right? So we have a very challenging time comprehending exactly how our dogs do what they do without visual dependency. We're like convinced. Like if you put the tin on just on a wall and it's just the only square, black square on the wall, oh, my dog got to it by visual. And yet you watch your dog work two and three inches around that tin before they actually put nose on source, and that should give you that information of, oh my gosh, my dog is using something other than their visual acuity to determine where that, right? And once you start to to move down that of being amazed, absolutely amazed at how our dogs do it. The concept there is as a handler, what is your role? What is your support role? What is your what teammate do you play, right? What's your role as a teammate on that? And it's that other dance partner. It's the first dance partner, you know, and I can remember, I hate to say this, but have been told many times that of course I don't dance very well because I want to lead, right? Like right. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's probably why I grew up in the 70s and I like rock and roll because it was very independent and I didn't have to like partner with anybody, right? Right, right. But if you think about it, even with training our dogs, training our dogs to sit, we often become the leader. We often become, right? We don't hand over that leadership role to our dogs. In nose work, it's essential. It's essential that they yeah, that we then become that supportive role, really delving each and every moment to understand what they're doing, why they're doing it, how they're doing it, and where is our ultimate source location, right? Communication. So I think that it really becomes that you become so thrilled and so engaged and so engulfed in that moment-by-moment experience of what is going on while your dog is solving odor to source that you lose yourself. You literally just you're not thinking about, and to the point, even you know, all of us have had those moments where, you know, maybe we're stepping on our leash, maybe it's it's raptor, and we we're not even conscious of of like where those pieces are or worrying about the perfection of the appearance. Rather, we are in a flow state of the performance, right? Yeah, yeah.

Training Your Brain To Stay Present

Speaker 14:23

Now, I think it it has to be important that we train this as well, because I think it's I I don't think that we can get to a trial and just assume we're gonna get there. I think we have to train our brains to try and be in the moment. I think that is something that has to be actively done. Just like, so not saying that we're meditating, but meditation's kind of the same way is when you start trying to meditate, you might only get 30 seconds. You might get 10 seconds before your brain starts wandering. And that's part of meditation, is bringing it back in and the practice of bringing your brain back in. So then if we say the same thing about searching, is we do need we need those moments of where we realize, oh, I'm making assumptions on what my dog is doing, or I'm trying to get my dog over to this direction and pulling them over there. The more that we can get a little bit more aware of those moments when they are happening and then letting it go and say, no, I'm in the moment, I'm responding to my dog, I'm seeing what's happening. I can make active decisions as a handler, but at the same time, those active decisions are conscious. Because I think what happens a lot of the times when we are searching, we might maybe flip into a little bit of a flow state and then we get afraid of it and we go, oh, all I'm doing is watching and following, but I'm supposed to cover the ground. And then we take over. And it's not even this gradual thing, it's not a suggestion, it's just like, but we haven't been over here and we stop listening completely. Like we find the hide, and then we're, oh, where do I have to go? Change direction of our head, and the dog's already trying to work another hide, and we take over again, right? So those little kind of slip moments are hard. So it's really staying present in the moment with the dog. And I can remember even doing this at an obedience class with just doing some leash work with Izzy, who's my very dog reactive dog, right? And you're walking around a little well, the exhibit hall with a lot of other dogs, and your whole job is just to do loose, and this is always hard to say, loose leash walking. Yeah, right. But I would actually just look at him and I would like point at my eyes and say, It's you and me, buddy, you and me, just us, right? And as long as I was fully engaged in the moment with that dog, right? And keeping our eyes on each other, I could get through the entire class with just a great moment of connectivity. Yeah, right. Yeah. So then you take that and you put it into nosework because as soon as we step into a search, oh my goodness, all of the things that are bombarding the human brain,

Foundations That Reduce Overwhelm

Speaker 16:53

right? Yeah, we've got our dog. And when we're talked about how we can train this, we'll go into some of that, some of the basics, because obviously, spending sufficient amount of time so that your dog is imprinted on the odors we're asking the dog to find, making sure we have odor importance and that we have odor recognition. And what how are those two different? One is the odor is of value, and it's not, it becomes not just valuable in terms of the reward, right? Which is the cookie or the toy, it's also valuable because the dog's engaging in the search with us, which means all of their behaviors matter. Yes. Versus if our dog doesn't have that value or they are not working and we don't know what that looks like, we aren't fully understanding that piece of it, then it's hard to be responsive to our dogs because we don't know. Are we responding to a distraction? Are we responding to odor? Right. Like that part gets a little bit cloudy if we don't have a dog that's working. And so it's going back to the basics and cleaning up the basics there. Right. And one of the conversation came up this weekend, too, about distractions, because the last two museums we've done, right? Oh my goodness, you know, the ground distraction, even going from search to search or in those old buildings, as you can imagine, right? Rodent ridden, you know, at some point in time, because even though, right, we're hopefully got clean surfaces that we're not sharing with the pests, right? Um, you still that those old buildings have to end if they're historical. Wow, can't even imagine hundreds of years of it. So even like the Laramie Prison Museum, which we've we've swore for years now, it's got you know some haunted pieces to it, right? Of all the footsteps that must have traveled there over all the years. But so even if we're looking at distraction and the dog goes, we think multitasking, and we can't tell the difference between whether the dog is working odor and working distraction, we move to a different state of mind almost like immediately as opposed to reactive. I'm going to address this as my dog is working odor and right and going to continue to support the team. Yeah. Now, I don't think that I don't think that they're mutually separate, though. They they are connected in a way. You can have a dog that is predominantly working and slips into distraction mode. And it doesn't mean that you are not in a flow state because I have been in situations where my dog is working nicely and we're doing it, and then I can see that distraction. And so being in that flow state allows you to see it more in real time instead of the aftermath of the distraction. Right. Right. So you can start seeing intensity, we're working, and then it slips out and things get a little bit duller and a little bit more focused and probably cappy or something. And if you are in that flow state, you see it as it's happening and you're able to tiny little leash pressure, maybe just a hey, searching, or maybe taking a little step back or to the side, and immediately it's the response is there and the dog goes right back to work. Versus if we're not in that flow state and we're still trying to react and figure out what's happening and we're we're fighting for that. I think we're easier to flip into manage. And so then we're pulling our dog off of things and we're not recognizing all the little bits. And I think we immediately we go into a conflict with our dog, right? Yeah. So the dog is saying, oh no, this is important, and it wasn't all that important until you told me it wasn't important, but now it's really important. Yeah. And now they're stuck on the right, they're stuck on the critter zone or whatever. So if we're talking about that, how do we achieve that Zen flow state in a search when we're talking about highly distracting areas? Well, the training can certainly be you make the source more important than the distraction. And how do you do that? You don't do a humongous search. You make the search, maybe the search is two feet away from the hide. Exactly. Is that difficult, right? Or maybe you use an open box and you put the hide in the open box. Now, granted, simplified. Yes, the dog may come into that and recognize visually those boxes pay. I'm gonna go stick my nose in it. And by God, there was a hide there, blah, blah, blah. Now I can use that same open box concept and start further and further away. And maybe, you know, eventually the dog's coming all the way through, and I've laid enough of this expectation uh with the dog that we are going to find source and it is going to be rewardable, which is what we're building. That is the Zen moment. Does your tools? Yeah, yes. Does your dog have an expectation that not just odor's present, but odor is present? It's going, there's a pathway to source. I'm going to get to source, and source is going to be that reinforced, rewardable moment, right? And maybe the reinforcement is happening the whole way along, right? And maybe it happened, you know, so it has to be all the all those pieces. But I really think that, and we say, Oh, I know how to train this. going to train foundation. Well you can say that word, but what does that really look like? Right? Yeah. What does that really look like? And you know, if if you're somebody who who feels very strongly about using a marker or maybe even using a marker certain at certain points in time in the training or in teaching or even in your searching, it's using it and having it used correctly and watching the dog's response to that correctly. If you feel like, oh no, I don't either I for whatever reason and one thing Alex and I have really tried to do is be inclusive, not be exclusive. And and there may be you may have seen either her or I train or teach and go, well, that's not at all what they say on their podcast. That's because sometimes on our podcast we're really trying to make sure that people have the freedom and flexibility to really look at this and figure out what's going to work for them and their dog. And it might work today and then tomorrow you might say hey what can I let's let's find some different tools. But basically without belaboring that piece geez that whole when when you just have that one moment where it all fell together together and maybe it is the one and done hide. Maybe it was your NW1 where you just you know and here's here's where we had a lot of it going on this weekend in where was I Grand Junction at the Cross Orchards Museum because we had the uh level one interior I mean exterior and the level one vehicle search and we had a lot of summit and elite teams doing their first right doing their first level one exterior or level one right because yeah I quite frankly the elements are quite a bit a lot of work for the host team just to host yeah and I basically had the entire and for the CO that's a lot of searches it's a lot and the judges so because right because we're running eight searches in one day yeah and they're just and we did two back to backs. So you were doing right go go go so it was a lot of and for the score room just trying to keep up with all those pieces. So so if you have as a handler if you haven't experienced volunteering or seeing any of those back alleys into the element searches just bear in mind that they are considerable amount of work on the flip side for handler and a dog team oh my goodness what fun right yeah exactly because you just go in your dog just nails it like in six seconds and you're going okay I came all this way for a six second search yay right or maybe because of distraction it was a minute and a half but yeah your dog worked it and you work together with confidence and clarity and your dog nailed

Covering Space Without Taking Over

Speaker 24:43

it. So that those would be Zen moments totally so okay I want to bring it back okay if we're talking about Zen moments and I want to make sure I'm covering my space what does that mean? How do I make sure that I'm going everywhere that I need to go I'm making sure I cover the whole space is that a me problem a dog problem how do I achieve that in flow state right so here's my example on that one. You can achieve flow state driving your vehicle right when does that happen? Typically in environments where you know where you're going it's familiar you've been there before the roads that you've already driven it's harder to achieve that flow state in a new environment I know when I travel to a new state totally different like driving like experience completely here in Arizona it's big wide roads big signs like nothing's crazy. So when I go somewhere out east I go whoa this is a totally new experience. I'm not in a flow state I can tell you that that is very uncomfortable for me and I have to stay on my game and keep really focused there's no flow state happening there's a lot of guessing and figuring out and making sure I'm there. But here's another example I went to California this past weekend I was in total flow state listening to my audio book I missed my exit three times. So it really shows you that's that missed area of a search area. Sure I'm achieving that flow state I didn't know my environment. So being more familiar with your search area if you can can be an advantage to still be in that flow state and responding and being very happy and where you're at but it allows you to keep track of the space as well. So would I have done better this weekend if I actually looked at the map, knew what my turns were before we got going? Absolutely same thing can happen in a search. Why don't I look at the walkthrough videos if there are for any CSW and then I can actually see okay here's what my room should look like okay there's some corners over here my natural path of my dog would take me over here and it allows me then to see these turns that might have to have a little bit of awareness so that we hit them when we go by them. And on the flip side you can quickly move in and out of this flow state right so watching your walkthrough videos and getting so caught up in oh my goodness there's a window and so it's going to be warmer over there. Maybe right it could be that it's actually cooler over there or no right because we don't know about the heat vents or anything or or the HVAC system or anything like that until we're in the space. Right. Right. So so it's really what Alex is talking about is trying to get just that basic lay of the land so that we feel confident and comfortable that we have a general idea of what it's going to be like as opposed to oh my gosh I had no idea that there was an adjacent room to my initial search, right? And so I never went into that other room even though my dog was trying to perhaps pull me into that other room I thought the other room was out of play blah blah right so yeah things like that that can very much help. And I think that that's part of it is really trying to figure out how do you get to that effortless control of the entire search between you and your dog and really the search is you and your dog in these in the search in that environment as opposed to just I'm gonna go in and observe the environment and let my dog know where we we should search because that connectivity with you and your dog then is missing right we're not in the moment with our dog right I can remember bringing Digger all the way up through elite champion in that summit that was my whole goal and I didn't get I only got two two summits I think with him before he passed but it was my whole goal was to learn to be in the moment with my dog in that summit serve. Right even if I didn't recognize all of the puzzles or I didn't score particularly well initially I just wanted to feel like I was in the moment with my dog while my dog was searching right yeah to be a team

Letting Go Of Titles And Outcomes

Speaker 28:58

member. Yeah so maybe along that same line and this is something else for flow state in general if you're trying to achieve it is it is enjoyable and rewarding in itself regardless of the outcome. This is kind of getting back to like enjoy the search and the search itself needs to be rewarding where we enjoy having that moment with our dogs. We're going in there because we want to work together as a team regardless if we miss something it almost doesn't matter if the whole goal of the whole search is we're responding to the dog, we're observing those changes of behavior if we've hit every area that we could think of and work together as a team responding to all the dog's changes of behavior that should be the reinforcement that should be what we're aiming for. It's hard we like titles qualifying passing the search finding all the hides right those are all things that we all want to do. But if that becomes your goal and the only measurement that you have for that search then it becomes a little bit harder to achieve a flow state because you really don't know if you're going to be successful. So then you are doubting everything you are questioning you're making assumptions and now we're no longer hitting that flow state. Why do we want to do a flow state? Because it's actually a really enjoyable place to be. It makes this sport even more fun than all the rest of the pieces put together. So if we can try and figure out how do I reach that flow state, how do I like want to be there and I'll often it's letting go of the need to title and it's like I need this cue, I need this title, I need this search to go well. And once we let go of that need and just say I'm in the moment I'm going to have fun with my dog and this is the search this is the moment right now that's where we can start achieving that and honestly that's where the titles come. That's where the placement comes that's where the success comes from because now we are working as a team instead of taking over in small little micro moments that are now causing big problems with our team. And a lot of that can even happen when you use words as results to define your search I want no's I want to not miss hides. That's not any different than saying I want a title right because really the way to kind of get your head around that is I would like to stay in the moment with my dog today and have feel like we both have clarity as to what we are doing at that moment in time right and then if you come up against a particularly challenging odor puzzle which that is going to happen right so Alex was even talking about when she went this weekend and experienced heavy humidity right yeah haven't seen that in a long time with Alex and her dogs did not respond as she is used to and I'm certain mine wouldn't either it's when they start to take longer than we think they should that we're like oh my God what's the matter are you not working? Are you broken? Like we immediately go to this negative kind of input zone I don't know how you do I think that also we go to we want to take over too in that because it's uncomfortable. Yes but it's okay to have unexpected situations in a flow state right I just waited my dog's working I know he likes odor I know it's not distraction because I trust my dog's working so it took us 45 seconds to find a garbage can hide and that's totally fine. Right but not expected I think well and there might be a lot of folks out there going oh aren't you lucky 45 seconds when their dog typically might take two minutes. So don't compare it to that guys. What we're saying is know your dog and you and how you would approach those situations and it's really not going to the doubt it's maintaining that confidence that the two of you are going to come in and do the best you can in that search at that moment on that day right and really getting enjoyment and you just are so fascinated with what the dog is doing and so passionate about how the old faction system works that you're just and and you almost get mesmerized but when we talk about mesmerized then you might be missing the pieces of what should you be doing to support your dog right so and of course then you can go through this whole flow state which is kind of like what happened I think with myself in Montrose where the searches felt amazing right up until I got a no right and then when I and then when I call a hide on pooling and trapping and they go no I'm like oh okay buddy well keep searching right and then it took me a little blip to shift back into hey that shrug it off that's okay right yeah and typically for us it's either I'm down I call it downwind right meaning I'm in a pooling and trapping zone that is quite disconnected or quite a ways away from source. Yeah right which is where I called it or I'm close. Right exactly right I'm close one that was on a called it on a desk and it was on the hinge that was yeah maybe three feet to his left right and he probably would have worked back there had I not gotten he's I always call it slap happy had I not gotten right the the the I want to say alert now because yeah I just do because it's fun to say alert and get a yes right it is it's so reinforcing talk about like that that lottery system right like pinball machine and the other one was in a spittoon and of course the odor had just floated all the way to the back of the bar. Yeah and so I'm back at the bar and call it there right so afterwards you look at it and you go oh but in the moment do I think those two no's did not handicap the the enjoyment of that search certainly in between it was just the moment of comprehending oh okay that isn't what we were looking for. Let's keep working right exactly so you can still have so we're not saying that the Zen flow state has to be the perfect search. No no so let's talk about the Zen flow state with time and sense to time because it can feel like there's no

Time Pressure And Real Confidence

Speaker 35:16

time whatsoever. It just feels like it just goes right but also it feels like it's maybe longer because everything is so present like you are seeing it in the moment. So you don't feel this rush, this blur of trying to keep up, trying to rush, trying to see all the things and when you're in that flow state it actually feels more comfortable and your time is actually shorter. And so I find a lot of people feel that time pressure. Okay, first time you go up into a lead, your search area is huge. You've got five minutes to cover the whole space. So then you rush to try and get around that whole perimeter and work the whole thing. And then you're back at the start it's only two and a half minutes. So now you've got time to do it again. But what happened is you weren't paying attention to all the changes of behavior as you were going through that space. And so now you have to do it again and you have only half the time to work all the problems now. And so when we are trying to achieve that flow state it's being able to see those in the moment and making that decision of I don't have to leave right now. Maybe I am as a handler making a decision to stand still and allow my dog to arc around me and finish this area. And that's just a decision of us deciding we are moving or we're making a decision to not move. And that can be as subtle as it is we don't have to say go over here. We don't have to say now do this. We could just make a decision to not keep running and we're just going to stop moving and see what our dog does from that. Right. And so that can be one of those tiny little things that allows us to maintain this a little bit more zen state where we're not rushing. We're not trying to get all those spaces because there's actually enough time as long as we work them and continue forward in a decent amount of time. And we're going back to training so in training can be some of your most important zen moments and flow state moments right you're really working on something and you're really working on it and and then all of a sudden you know one search it just all falls together and you go wow okay now I get it right and maybe it maybe it's your your connectivity on your leash that you did one uh search where you didn't fumble with it in your hands or right or your dog responded well to being on leash or or you were able to really do the dance with your dog off leash. Those can be just tremendously good moments. Like so I think that the part of it is when we talk about how to train this you want to figure out okay so if the Zen state or the flow state is that fluent and effective efficient search all the things we train actually build up to that right so yeah so it's really getting that clarity as to what you need to train and how you need to train it to gain increased progressive skill sets right yeah yeah and then once you do that and you have clarity you're gonna start to build consistency. Right. Right. So you're gonna see yourself and your dog being able to solve the high hides the the crack hides the the chair hide at one right where you just go in and you get it and and your dog identifies where odor is right away and and you feel so successful in that way. And then from the clarity and the consistency you build confidence and dang when you hit that confidence that's where and I think I have to say that that's what's wonderful about nose work where maybe some other sports where people can actually feel like they do have it all mastered I almost think in nose work you never quite have it mastered. No, right because every dog is going to throw you something new every environment's going to throw every environment to be something new. Exactly that we just cannot predict so it's not like and not to to disassemble or discredit any other dog sport but most of the other dog sports you have some consistencies you can rely on right yeah yeah whereas in nose work the environment is just oh well you know the environment probably plays a role in almost everything we do with our dog. But I think there's also no perfect and I think that's really hard for people because like if I'm saying obedience a perfect is a hundred percent hundred score right and that's what you're aiming for if you're trying for the top level since I'm just trying to get around the ring. But you know obedience but you do try to do perfection and nose work let's just I do I like perfection and nosework perfection like with other sports you're aiming for a lot more of that perfection because it's a little more predictable versus and like even agility yes you have different course maps you have different turns you have different things but a lot of the concepts are very much repetition and doing the things in the correct order with the connective connectivity that we're aiming for in nose work it's like an ultimate like we have no clue. There's infinite possibilities in every second of the search and so because we have infinite possibilities and none of them are wrong necessarily and it's just interesting to see where does my dog go on this one? Where does my dog go on that one? If you have the exact same dog doing the exact same search in the exact same situation, not that we could ever do that, this version of the story might play out different than this version of the story just because I didn't step forward in that moment or my dog dropped their head instead of picked up their head. Right. And that changes the whole story of the whole search and it could be a different situation each time. And so because of that there's no perfect there's no oh this is the absolute best way to handle this. No, every dog's different every situation's different every fraction of a second can give you a break in the odor picture or a wind gust or a door opening and closing on the other side of the building. And so I think letting go of that idea that you are this perfect handler is very empowering because it allows you to make mistakes and see the feedback from your dog because it is a conversation there's no perfect conversation there's just a dialogue going back and forth. And as long as your dog is telling most of the story, you're probably fine. Well and that's really telling too because one of the ways that you can really gain some confidence that all of what Alex just said is reality. I'm not even going to say true but reality is volunteer either volunteer be a judge or you know set hides and watch multiple dogs work those hides. From that you will gain that expectation that the puzzle can be solved a million different ways. Yeah so because even if the lowest ever changing that's the ever changing environment and we also have an element of luck. And I think understanding that that luck can make the difference between placements or titling or finding a hide I think that can be a little freeing too because then it's not us that's the problem it's not our dog that's the problem. It's just that situation just didn't work that day. So when we talk about stop feeling overwhelmed achieve a Zen flow state search the one thing I think that we're not really talking about is becoming so organized that you never feel humble that you never feel handicapped. It's actually the opposite we are suggesting you need to empower yourself and accept feeling humbled right and yep exactly humbled and really certainly that we are our goal is to be as responsive as we possibly can to our dog's response to odor right and that becomes our goal as opposed to I should go in and I know exactly what to do when yeah does that sound fair yeah completely yeah it's that curiosity that allows us to stay in the moment right and then we just keep going with our dogs and respond. It's that fascination yeah like you know if we and you wouldn't really stop the search because you felt like you didn't know what you were doing. Right? Yeah yeah because there should be almost moments in almost every search you have where you go wow I have no idea what we're doing. Exactly it's happening right now. Yeah exactly because that is the you know the dog is is painting a picture for us that we do we see Visually, the dog is painting through their old faction. Right. So it's yeah.

Closing Thoughts And What’s Next

Speaker 44:05

So well, that's been a great conversation, guys. Glad you could join us for stop feeling overwhelmed. Achieve a zen flow state search. And you know, I think that even if you just take the word I want to feel some zen from my next search, yeah, and look for those little moments, those little moments that just went, ah, right? They're there. It's like that moment that you're sitting on the beach and you fully relaxed, you fully feel engaged in life. And instead, we're talking about feeling fully engaged with our dog search with our dog at that moment. Yeah. So yeah. Any last words, Alex? What are you up to? So, oh, lots of stuff, right? So we have four more trials maybe coming up uh before summer. Um, so all of those will be going on with mountain dogs. I'm headed out to Salem, Oregon to CO out there the end of this month. I've got the new website K9 Cent Fix. That's the teaching education site for Mountain Dogs coming up. And I think I that might kind of hit it. I don't know. Oh, and another thing, I'm gonna I'm gonna bite off taking on educating myself as a score room lead. So that's gonna be right because I had my NW1 to way back in the day. I don't want to say before we discovered computers, but it almost goes that way, right? So I'm gonna jump back in and and try to become educated on that side so that um because you always worries a host, right? If I can't find this or or if right something happens, would I know what to do? Yeah. So yeah, I just kind of want to button that up and go from there. How about two ads? What are you up to? I am starting this week. So registration's still open until Tuesday. The focus in your search class. So that's an online class, all new class of mine, and I'm excited about this. We are breaking it down. Like, can you reinforce so we've got higher motivation? Like we're going from that level and creating focus off the line. So that's starting up right now, as well as novice class and my regular classes all are finished for the summer. I'm like out for summer. It's kind of exciting. And then I've got Gunnison coming up that I get to play. I'm really excited. I haven't done an elite in a while. And then Flatcoat National Specialty, judging out there, and then Bayfield. And I get to do my first CEO or judging shadowing. So hopefully I can become an NECSW judge. Well, and at Leadville, right? Yes. So Leadville, yeah, Leadville High School. She's gonna take on. I'm excited. Is it your first? No. No, no, not my first. I think it's like fourth or something. Yeah, yeah. So she's gonna be doing a three, two, one. Oh my gosh. I look at him. You have a full schedule for me. And we talked about that this weekend as well, which is where did we go wrong with thinking these half days were going to be like three of the or two of them? Boy, you put yeah, and there's three, yeah. So it's but the benefit is that we are able to get more levels to more people, exactly. So so that's kind of the goal there. So yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's gonna be fun. So thanks, Alex. Thanks for joining us. Hope everybody enjoyed our little discussion about Zen flow state searching. Bye, everyone.