Melissa Bishop: Bonding with Your Dog through Sports

This week, I sat down with Melissa Bishop to discuss bonding with your dog through sports. Melissa has been our agility instructor for a few months now, and she has been an amazing influence on us. She teaches with such natural ability and ease, and has been competing in this sport for decades - but beyond that, she focuses on making the experience on both ends of the leash fun and enjoyable during each and every class.

Listen and discover:

• The right and wrong reasons to participate in sports with your dog
• Why dog agility is considered a TEAM sport
• What to prioritize in your relationship with your sport dog
• How to make sure both ends of the leash are having the best possible time during agility

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You're back. I'm so glad. I'm always glad. Every time I see people returning to listen to my new episodes, it just makes my week. Thank you for being here with me. Hannah on the subwoofer. So over the last few months, Otto and I have picked up a new hobby together dog agility. This is a sport I had a little bit of familiarity with before we got started, because my mom does dog agility as well. I'm drawn to it because of the precision and mechanics it requires. But what I've really been enjoying most about learning agility is how it contributes to the bond between auto and me, and that is our topic at hand today. Our agility instructor, Melissa Bishop, has been an amazing influence on us as we delve into agility. She teaches with such natural ability and ease and has been competing in this sport for decades. But beyond that, she focuses on making the experience on both ends of the leash fun and enjoyable during each and every class. As a competitive person, I know all too well how easy it can be to lose sight of that when you're after a title. I appreciate how rare it must be to be indoctrinated into the world of dog agility by someone who never fails to remember that having fun is the most important thing, no matter how well you end up doing in the ring. I knew Melissa would be the perfect person to discuss bonding with your dog through sports, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did. So today I have with me Melissa Bishop, who is not only an incredible dog trainer, but she is my and Otto's agility instructor, and I'm just thrilled for the conversation that we're going to have today, because we're talking about bonding with your dog through sports. Melissa began training dogs as a teenager, first in junior showmanship and conformation and then in obedience while living in Europe after college, she learned about and fell in love with the sport of dog agility. In addition to competing with eight different dogs of her own over the last 25 plus years, she enjoys teaching other people and their dogs to do agility rally canine manners and tricks. She believes that clear communication is the key to great dog training. She strives to help dog owners decipher their dog's body language and behavior, which can improve the relationship and sense of teamwork between them. Melissa is a certified training partner of the Karen Pryor Academy and a Certified Dog Training professional. Knowledge assessed through Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers. She also has a Tag teach teaching with Acoustical Guidance Level one certification. Before becoming a full time dog trainer, she served a 21 year career as a clarinetist in the US Navy Band in Washington, D.C., retiring as a senior Chief musician. She shares her life with her husband Stan, two sons, three dogs, and two cats. Prior to opening fund Pup Dog Sports in the summer of 2023, she taught at Summit Dog Training in Fort Collins for four years. When listening, should know who they are by now, for sure. Interviewed all of them. Before that, Melissa taught agility at Wolfe's Dog Training Center in Arlington, Virginia for six years and for the Fairfax County, Virginia Park Authority for 12 years. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Hannah, I appreciate that. Yes, of course. And we, uh, I may have mentioned this in previous episodes, but Melissa and I have more in common than our love of dogs. Um, we're we're both classically trained musicians, though I certainly do not hold the status that you hold. Uh, um, you know, it's all it's all just on the spectrum, like everything else. One of these. One of these days. Maybe if I come to your agility camp next summer, we'll have to bring instruments and maybe do a little violin. Oh, yeah. Do wedding violin and clarinet. Do what? That would be lovely, but. Well. So before we really dive into the meat of the topic here, I wanted to ask you, as someone with experience in such a variety of different applications of dog training, what draws you to sports in particular, and what gave you the bug for that? Yeah. So, I mean, I grew up with dogs, like many of us, grew up with a childhood dog. And our one of my main childhood dogs was a dog that, um, we, we got from a breeder with the understanding that we would show her. And so I kind of got introduced to that world, um, of, you know, conformation showing as a, as a pre-teen, probably I was probably was probably when I was about 12 or 13 and we showed our, our villa, we had a villa when I was growing up. And then we got a second one to kind of be her stablemate. Um, and I got interested in the following couple of years in doing, um, obedience is where I started with my kind of dog sports. I started with obedience and it was fun. My dog and I were not super successful, but we had a good time trying something new. And then that same dog I had in college I took with us, like my husband and I went to, um, Europe for about four years after we got married. And so this dog accompanied us to Europe. And he's the reason I got into agility is because we went to the same dog park every afternoon at 4 p.m., and at some point along the way, um, one of my friends invited me to go with her to do agility to try it out with my dog, and we didn't have a car when we lived over in Europe. We had bikes and so I biked. I don't even know how far it was, but it was a good half hour bike ride. I biked from our apartment up into the north part of Amsterdam to this agility facility, and my dog ran alongside with God like the whole way. He, um, he got there and was not even breathing hard. He wasn't even panting by the time we got there. Wow. It was a very fit, fit dog. Um, I didn't know anything about agility at all. I didn't really speak enough Dutch to know what was going on. Even though Dutch people speak English very, very well. The class was probably in Dutch, and it was a big eye opener for me about like the possibilities of having fun with your dog, doing sports with your dog. That dog did agility only because he loved me. He didn't enjoy enjoy very much of it. Um, he liked jumping, but he didn't because of the, um. So I don't know. I just I didn't know what I was doing. And that's a hard thing is when the dog is new at a, at a, an event, a sport, and you're new at it. And the combination of that with very little instruction, he just didn't have a very good introduction to some of the equipment. And so he was scared of a lot of things. But he was a beautiful jumper and it kind of got me hooked, even though we didn't really compete much. But the next dog I got a few years later, we got a puppy when we were living in Spain, and she was a great little agility dog, just for the brief time that I did agility with her. She was great and it got me hooked and I enjoyed that much more than I enjoyed obedience. Although people who do obedience and do it well love it. Um, it just was for me. Like once I found agility, I kind of never looked back. And since then I've done some other sports with my dogs, have done rally and nose work and some other fun things, and I've enjoyed those as well. But my heart is in agility. That's what I really love doing because it's fun. It's it is fun. You get to run around like, shout and, you know, get your dog to chase you. It's tons of fun. I really enjoy it too. Yeah. Even though we haven't done like, um, we haven't gotten to the level of doing longer sequences yet in what you're teaching. Otto and I, every time we do a little one, it's so fun, and I can tell he's having a good time, too, because we're doing several things in a row and he's like, oh, oh, okay, great. Now we get to work with the equipment. It's fun and it's a blast. And I like on your website you have come play agility with us. I think that's that's huge because it's easy to think of any sport as more competitive than maybe you should, especially at the beginning. Um, so it's a good reminder that it's supposed to be fun. It is. And I and I appreciate you noticing that. I just I really feel like a lot of times, especially for those of us who have been doing agility for a long time and, you know, people who've been doing agility a long time, you have family members doing it and friends, um, you can get kind of lost in the the whole competition aspect of it and forget that the reason you started in just about every student who comes to me says, I want to do something fun with my dog. Yeah. And so the joy of discovering an activity, whether it's agility or not, some, you know, um, I think each dog has its own interests, let's say interests and strengths. Um, I think once you find the thing that lights your dog up, you know, that brings them joy and brings you joy, I think that's it's so important. It's just it we talk a lot about enrichments as a thing that you give your dog, like a frozen Kong or a tuple or some kind of long lasting chew or licking mat or a cardboard box to shred or whatever. And my dogs get lots of those. But enrichment is also something that you do with your dog, and I think finding the right sport with the subheading of our of our podcast episode today, we're talking about bonding with your dog, but it's bonding with your dog through sports, as enrichment is kind of what we want people to kind of take away from this is that it has to be something. I'm always my mission as an instructor is to make sure that my students are having fun, and that includes the human student and the dog student. Like, I want to see both both sides of the leash having a good time. Yeah, absolutely. And I think our dogs have a lot to teach us sometimes about fun. Oh yeah. About that. Um, to kind of get out of our own heads and just be present and enjoy, enjoy what's happening. And sports are such a great vehicle for that. So we when I read your bio, I mentioned, so you've been competing in dog sports for a long time, over 25 years. And I know that you've interacted with a lot of people in those spaces. So from your perspective, especially since we're talking about elements of competition, what are the right and wrong reasons to participate in sports with your dog? Well, that's a it's a great question. It's it's kind of a multilayered question. I mean, most of us get into sports with the dog that we have, like our family dog. For me, you know, I started with, um, kind of the dogs that we had when I was a teenager. Um, and then I got my own dog as a young adult. I was still I was in college. I was a senior in college. But I think the right and wrong reasons, like, we get into sports, I always ask my students, like, why? What? What brought you here to this class? And like I said, people start out saying I wanted to do something fun with my dog. Many people talk about I needed an outlet for my dog's energy. That's a common one. Some people, for some people, they come to agility to maybe build their dogs confidence a little bit. But primarily it's to have fun. And I think if that is the core of what you're doing when you're doing dog sports, you really can't go wrong. I think when we kind of it goes off the rails a little bit is when we put the success and I put that in quotes, because that can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But when we put maybe the title or. Or the placement. Um, or winning ahead of our dog's well-being. That's when things can go a little bit wrong, and we lose. The joy that we started with is when those things become our priority. And, I mean, I'm a competitive person. I think a lot of people who get into dog sports do it because it's a sport. I mean, it is a sport and we're competing. Um, I think we can we're at our best when we're competing against ourselves and what our goals are. Right. I would like to handle this sequence better. I'd like to learn this maneuver. I'd like to really feel connected with my dog while we're doing this. And my biggest thing is I want to come out of the ring with a smile on my face. Even if even if what happened in the ring wasn't wasn't my best or the wheels fell off and we we earned every single fault there is to earn. Or we went off course and something that was, you know, we thought we could, you know, I'm going to nail this run. It's going to be awesome. And then we it doesn't go as well as we want. The main thing is that the dog needs to feel like a champion when they come out of the ring. And so I've had I had somebody say that to me once and I it was such a compliment. They said, you are always smiling at your dog when you come out of the ring. And, um, you know, my, my current dogs, the ones that I'm competing with now, I think have the benefit of me not being as kind to my dogs in decades past. You know, I, I had goals, and I remember one time I left the ring with my border collie, Ruby. And I was upset with her for something. And when I look back on it, it was my poor training that I was upset with. I didn't realize it at the time. I blamed it on her like, oh, she missed her A-frame contact because I think that's what it boiled down to, was that she missed her A-frame contact. Mhm. And you know, when I look back on that now I'm a, I think a kinder a kinder handler. I have my, I think my priorities are in a, in better order than they were then or I'm just more aware of the fact that our dogs do what we train them to do. Yeah, they're doing their best. And you know, we're doing our best as well. But it's our job because we're the ones that, you know, paid for the classes, entered the trials, drove our dogs there. It's our job to make sure that our dogs think that what we're doing with them is the best, the best part of their day, the best part of their week. Right. The highlight of their time is was having fun with us. Yeah. When the for lack of better term, the burden of competing is really ours to bear. Like the burden of, you know how well you score. That's that's really you know, our dogs are not aware of that or think they are. Yeah. And you know and they don't need to be and you're probably, I imagine you're probably kinder to yourself now than you used to be as well, which helps you be kinder to your dog. Right? I think that's definitely true. Yeah. For sure. I think, you know, we we talk about right and wrong reasons for competing. And it's easy to get caught up in this right at the beginning. We talk about earning a Q and a Q just stands for qualifying run. Um and so we all want to Q right. We want to Q to qualify. And a run becomes a very important part of it. Um, placing, you know, being in the top placements is fun, having the fastest time. That's fun. And then qualifying for like. World teams or going to nationals or something like that. Those become they can become front and center for people. And so I try to tell people like push that to the side and have 1 or 2 things that you are going to focus on for that run. Like, I want my dog to hold their start line with focus like attention on me. When I walk out to do my lead out, I want my dog focused on me and holding that stay until they hear their first cue. And that will see you first, the first, the cue for the first obstacle. And so that may be my goal for that run, or to have really great speedy weaves or to feel connected. Every time my dog comes out of a tunnel, I reconnect. I don't, I don't lose them anywhere on the course. So those can be personal goals. And I think if those are your those are the things that you're going in thinking, that's what I want from this run. Those are things you can control and you can also control your response to things that go wrong. You know, in talking about, you know, the things that we can control in life, but also in dog sports, we can't control the weather. We can't control the equipment, we can't control whether we qualify, whether the judge calls a fault on something we can't control, whether we place or have the fastest time, but we can control how. We connect with our dogs, we can control some of the training that we do and and what we prioritize in our training. Um, and we can also control how we treat our dogs. And if kindness is the the first thing that you strive for. Um, kindness to your dogs and kindness to yourself. Because we're not perfect either. Right. And kind of see the people around you. Yeah. Um, I think that, uh, goes a long way. And making make it they make us feel more successful in our endeavor. Yeah, absolutely. And it makes the whole process more if you're not as if you're not so hard on yourself for what they're. Or. Here's how my therapist puts it. If you're not attached to the outcome and you're just enjoying the process and controlling what you can, then the whole thing is way more fun. But if you're too focused on that cue, then you might be robbing yourself of some joy there. Yeah, for sure. I think, um, when we think about anything, uh, sports wise, the process is definitely more important than the outcome. You know what I mean? The preparation. I mean, you probably felt this way about, um, um, auditions for things. That audition, I mean, well, maybe one outcome could be winning the audition. Um, whether it's for chair placement or for a job or something like that. Um, it also could be, um, you could look at it as this is an opportunity for me to get better, for me to improve my, my skills. And so that's kind of what I love. The training aspect, the competing is just, um, giving you an idea of how well your training is going. Right. And it's just a snapshot. It's just one little picture. And even if you trained really well, the environment could be really challenging for your dog when you go to. And maybe that throws off their concentration. Or maybe you just have a really sensitive dog and there is just a particular trigger that happens at a particular time in the middle of your room that can throw things off. I mean, that's just such a small piece of it. Yep. I think I might have told your class. I'm not sure. Did I tell your class the dead frog story? No. Okay, so, um, I might have told a level three classes because. Because we work on. We've poles a lot in level three, and, um. I, my dog Mabel, who's now 13.5 and, um, retired from agility. She she's just a she's made me work for everything. I love this dog so much. And, um, she's a rat terrier, husky cattle dog mix with a whole bunch of other things that small percentages, but, uh, not like your typical agility breeds, right? Breed or mix. You know, she's just. She's a shelter dog, and I just adore her. She's. I call her a delicate flower. Like, she doesn't like to go outside when it's wet. Um, she just she has certain particular things she, she likes, but she's been a great, consistent agility dog for me. And there was one trial where throughout the weekend, especially on Sunday, the weaves were in the same place. The weave pulls were in the same place for the entire day, and she got less and less excited about the weaves. She was popping out in the middle, which she never did. And I'm like, what is going on with this dog? Like, she never does this. She's she likes the weaves. So as the day went on, she refused. The weave pulls toward the end of the day. And then, um, the last run of the weekend on Sunday afternoon was jumpers. And so they took out the weave poles, um, for that run. We didn't use them in that run. And sure enough, underneath the the base of the weave poles was a dead, squashed, flat frog. Oh, my God, I've been dead. You know, who knows how long it was dried up? Old squashed frog. And she knew that frog was there. And was not going to weave on top of it once, you know, the dirt kind of gets. Yeah. Okay. And so the odor was probably stronger and stronger throughout the day. And interestingly, once the weave poles weren't there and we were just running through with jumps and tunnels, she still wouldn't run in that little area of the arena. Wow. So, you know, another example of something you can't really control. Mhm. And you just have to make the best of the situation. And for me I came out of it like oh my gosh. Well I'm glad that's what it was. I'm glad she's not hurt. You know like because when it starts to refuse an obstacle that they know how to do, then you know, your mind immediately goes to something physically being wrong with your dog. Right? And I was like, oh, it's just a dead frog. So there won't be another dead frog in the in the ring. The next place we go to, there'll be something else, like somebody's eating a plate of tater tots right in front of the ring, which happened to me one time, and my dog left the ring to go, like, dance around and ask for tater tots. Lots of little things happen like that. And you just. You just have to laugh. I mean, we're we're running around with our dogs, asking them to jump over plastic bars and we even and go through tunnels and things like that. And we have to be able to laugh when things go wrong. It's just an opportunity to, you know, have some homework I need to train with. I'm not going to train with a dead frog in the ring for Mabel, but I could train around some other distractions. And since you say she's so consistent, mum tells you if she refuses something, it is for a good some specific reason. She has a reason. Yeah. Whether it be it or not, she had a great reason. And how cool that she that you were able to put that together. It's amazing how particular some dogs can be and how just how much more they can ascertain from their surroundings than we can a bunch of other dogs. Probably also smelled the frog. They just probably decided they didn't care about it. Yeah, yeah, and there could have been other dogs who also refused to leave. I just they weren't. I mean, it's not your dog. You're just like, oh, well that's unusual or. Yeah, whatever. But you know, when it's your dog in a reflection of your training is what it, what it felt like. Um, but you're right, like, I, I knew my dog too normally doesn't have issues weaving, so that was kind of. It was odd and it was frustrating because I was like, what? You know, what is what's going on? The is the equipment. Is it her? Is she hurt? Is, you know, so I guess you could say it was a relief to find the dead dog. Well, but, um. Yeah. Yes, I love that. So something that I heard my mom say, who also does agility years ago when she was introducing agility to my stepson. Yep. Um. Is. She said, did you know that this is the fastest growing team sport in the nation? And he thought that was really cool. And she emphasized the term team sport. I love that. Yeah. And, um, his his mom was also with us. And she has a background in team athletics. It was like, oh how cool. And you could almost see see something click in her head because she's she's very familiar in working with the team athletically. And then she ended up doing a couple like small sequences and she did them really well. And I think that a part of it had to do with like, oh, I get it. This is just us working as a team. So I know agility is considered a team sport. Are other sports also considered to be a team activity in the same way, like rally knows work, or is there some difference in how those. So I feel like that is probably like I think a lot of handlers in in all kinds of different sports would consider their dog their teammate. Yeah for sure. I mean, you think about team sports. We just got done watching the Olympics a couple months ago here, um, the Summer Olympics where they've got equestrian events and those are team sports in two ways. One, that, you know, the country sends a team. And so there are certain I don't I'm not a horse person, so I don't want to speak out of turn. But my understanding is that there are some events that are team events where, you know, they'll be I don't know if it's 3 or 4 riders and their horses are all competing and the scores are somehow combined. Um, I know there's individual events as well, but there's team events. Um, and that's, that's the case in dog agility, too. We, we have team events. Flyball is one that is a big team. That's a big team sport. Right. And in fact, I think that is one of the things that people love about that sport is how well, first of all, I think it's a very encouraging sport for new people, for people who come with children, they involve children in the the fly ball tournaments and things like that. And that's unusual in the dog world. I think flyball is is known for that being welcoming and inclusive of people of all ages, including people who come with their children, they put them to work and they I just think it's great. And, um, one thing that I think we could do a better job of in agility, but, you know, flyball is a team of four handlers and dogs competing against other teams and their head to head, you know, two teams running at the same time. Agility is. There is. There are events that are team events. Um, the one of the venues, one of the organizations that offers agility trials is USDA. That's, um, the United States Dog Agility Association. And they have a team event which started out as three dogs, three handlers, and they also offer a two handler, two dog version as well. They're running on the same courses. But, um, there's reasons for three dog and two dog that are not super important. But the out of the five runs in the team event, four of them, you're running individually, your scores are combined. And then the last event is a team relay for your in the in the ring with your teammates and their dogs. And one dog runs a portion of the course and comes back. And sometimes there's a baton hand off. And then the second person goes with their dog and runs their portion of the course. And then another baton handoff. And then there's a third person who runs. And that's that's really fun. Yeah. So yes, there's a team aspect to it in that way. But I think more importantly, and probably what you're getting at with the question is the team aspect, if we think of it as you're a team with your dog. Mhm. I mean it is a team sport in that way. And there are some clubs, some training facilities and clubs that offer league agility league like bowling league and it's, it's super fun. I have never had the opportunity because I haven't lived in a place that does it. But the people I know who do agility league, um, have a good time doing that. It's kind of more of a social event and someone might walk away with like the award for the best rookie dog or different. There's different prizes that different clubs will give out for league, but that ends up kind of feeling a little bit more like a team as well, right? That's so cool. And so given that these are team sports. Faults, so to speak, is that am I using the right terminology? Yeah. So yeah, those can fall on both the dog and the handler. Is that correct? That is correct. I think most of the time I mean, if we want to talk about who who owns the faults, the judge is judging the dog primarily. However, there are things that the handler, the human half of the team can do that will earn a fault as well. And those things include like touching the dog, touching the equipment we joke about, like you're not supposed to curse when you're running agility, and some of the venues are more strict about that than others, but you apparently can incur a fault for cursing. I've actually seen that happen, but it was kind of in in jest but unsportsmanlike conduct. You can get a fault for sure, but primarily the judges is judging the dog, and so the dog is the one that might incur faults for things like dropping a bar, knocking a bar, or, um, uh, missing a contact on the A-frame dog walker, teeter, um, missing the weave pole going off course. Those kinds of things are false. However, even though the dog is the one that's being judged, in that case, the handler is the one directing the dog. So both of you, I mean, generally we always say it's it's it might be tempting to blame the dog, but it's it's almost never the dog's fault. It's really their doing what either what we have directed them to do on the course or what they think that we've directed them to do. Yeah. So sometimes people will swear like, oh, my dog was being naughty. And he went off course. And you know, you can watch people run and be like, well, if I were your dog, I might have gone, I might have taken that tunnel to I might have. You know, you can see from the dog's perspective. So I think, yeah, it's this a great thing to think about is how much of it is teamwork. And, um, you know, in that in that light, I also want to I do try to convey this especially to my newer students, that your dog should always have a choice in. You know, doing, doing agility or not. Like when they're being introduced to obstacles, I always want the dog to be able to opt out, right. Um, and that's kind of a new concept here. I'd say in the last, I don't know, ten years. We've talked a lot more about cooperative care in terms of vet visits and grooming, grooming visits, either to a salon or the stuff that you do at home grooming wise for dogs, like giving the dogs the ability to make a choice about participating or not. Mhm. I always want the dogs to feel safe saying no, like nobody's going to make you do this. If you if you don't feel comfortable walking across this slightly elevated plank. When we're first starting to teach things like dog walk and teeter. Um, it's a narrow, you know, it's it's 12in wide. So, um, for, for the majority of dogs, that's a fairly comfortable width to walk on. But I've had some students with really large dogs, and they have to navigate something that smaller groups don't have to really think much about. So just making sure that dogs are comfortable and that we're not asking too much of them if it's hot, that they have a chance to go sit in the shade. If, um, if we've done too many repetitions that the dog, if they leave the area, if they go back to their shade station or their or their platform, or go get some water that we let them do that we try to be mindful about how many times we're asking them to do something, or the difficulty, like the increase in difficulty if we've made something too hard, that we're always being mindful that the dog can tell us this got hard, right? I want the dogs to feel successful. Like, I mean, my goal would be that they're successful 100% of the time, and that's not necessarily achievable, but I want them to be. I'm trying to set my dog up to succeed as often as possible, and that includes knowing when to stop knowing, knowing when to write, not keep asking for one more time. Yes, that can be difficult to learn, I imagine, for a lot of people, especially because agility dogs, their athletes for sure their bodies are executing difficult, complex, highly controlled maneuvers in a lot of areas of the course that's muscular, cardiovascular work that we're not necessarily doing. So we can't, you know, it's not quite the same as going on a run with another person running on the trail or something, and realizing how tired you both are. At a certain point, you have to. Consciously consider how much they're being asked to do physically and mentally, too. And it's and it's our responsibility to be aware of that, to be aware of what we're asking our dogs physically and mentally. And I mean, maybe I mean, we could even say emotionally, like some of the things that we're asking the dogs to do. I think about this a lot. I've been watching the recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and in eastern Tennessee, like across there, and how devastating that all was. And I know they have had a lot of search and rescue dogs out there. I cannot imagine I have friends who who have done this before, you know, who have dogs, who are trained to, to, to do this kind of kind of work. And it's it's incredibly challenging, difficult for the people involved, for the human handlers. But you have to imagine that for the dogs, especially if they're trained to locate people who are still alive, that if they're not that how difficult that is and the conditions in which they're working. So I think people who are search and rescue dog trainers are very, very mindful of what they're asking their dogs to do. Yeah. Um, and the conditions in which they're working, and, you know, our agility stuff is a whole. It's it's not I'm not comparing the two. They're very, very different. We're still responsible for our dog's well-being. And so, you know, I want to look like is the contact equipment hot like it's been sitting in the sun? Am I asking the dog to get on an A-frame and practice their A-frame hits in the in the surface is hot, is like the hot as the sun or something like that. You know what we were talking about with Mabel and the frog? Um, you know, I have wildlife on my field all the time, and I know there's been foxes and skunk, and, I mean, I've smelled smelled the skunk on occasion, a deer. I've seen deer, um, rabbit, all kinds of stuff. So are we asking the dog to do something in an environment that's too difficult for them in that moment yesterday evening, there were treats out on the field, and, uh, my level four class, some of the dogs were really, really struggling. And that's hard. It's hard to ask them to, like, run across an area that might have some treats dropped in it. And the treat in their handler's hand is right. Maybe not as good as the treat that's on the ground. You know that somebody stopped and that happens. So I think being mindful of, you know what? We're what we're asking the dogs to do in the conditions we're asking them to do it under are not too difficult. Um, and always working to like being being fair and increasing the difficulty level and the challenge. Right, right. I tell people all the time, you know, when you're ready to start considering competing with your dog, the human part of the team should go and observe a trial just with the idea of like, this is what the environment is like, and how is my dog going to handle this? Like, is the noise going to be a factor? All the dogs in crates, is that going to be a factor? Um, is there a food vendor and is the odor of that going to be, um, you know, something my dog is prepared for? And just the waiting around, there's a lot of waiting around and an agility trial. Mhm. Dogs, if they're not able to rest during that time, that rest time in between their runs, if they're, like keyed up and not able to to rest, um, that's going to be hard. And so one of my students just came to I don't know that it was her very first trial, but it was her first trial hearing in Colorado. And she was really wise about her dog does not do well in the car, um, waiting in the car. And he would not do well in a crate indoors in the crating area. So she just planned runs where she could be with him in between things, help him navigate that, that environment, that setting. Yeah, I think there is an aspect to that as well. So this is reminding me of when I talked with Amy Craven, who you know as well. I had asked her about the origin of her business name, which is Trust Your Dog. And she was talking to me about working in search and rescue and how that had inspired a little bit of of that. And so everything you're saying about the challenges of the environment, which can be numerous and varied and. Trusting when your dog is not able to handle it. Not going to that mental place up there. They're just being stubborn or, you know, they're being naughty, trusting that if they're not able to execute something they've been trained to do and that you've witnessed their progress in. There is some good reason on their side for that, and it's a valid reason. Absolutely. And there's a saying that is, I think, common in parenting circles, but it applies to dogs as well. Um, and so, you know, this would be about children, but if I'll say it like if we're talking about dogs, um, the dog isn't giving you a hard time. The dog is giving you a hard time. The dog is having a hard time. Right. And if we can trust that whole trust your dog thing, if we trust that the dog is telling us the truth. Yeah. Um, and also, I want my dog to be able to trust me that I'm going to listen. Yeah. You know, and so I definitely this example of going to your first trial without your dog. Mhm. Um, to, to see the environment, the next trial you go to would be with your dog and just, you know, I might just go for half an hour so you may drive an hour just to go for half an hour to have your dog maybe outside the building. Can you sniff around? Can you take treats? Let's go inside the building. How does that feel? Or you know, can you do simple things like eat? Can you respond to simple cues? Can you give me eye contact in this environment, letting them sniff around in acclimate and seeing how the dog responds to the environment? Some dogs are like, great, I'm getting I'm getting treats. I'm with my person. Yeah, we're just great. Um, life is good. And and then other dogs would be a little bit more like, you know, I they've never encountered something like that. It's super loud. There's a lot of dogs barking. And maybe just being in the parking lot is enough. You know, you don't even have to go into the building. Yeah. Um, but trusting the dog to say this is a lot. I may not be comfortable watching for body language cues and and how the dog is taking treats are able to interact with the toy with you, and then the dogs being able to trust that we're going to listen to them and make the situation easier if we can, by moving them away from the the ring, the action, um, or not sitting in the bleachers with them for two hours, talking to our friends with the dog. They're like focusing on the dog and listening to them when they've had enough. Right. Um, and again, you know, some dogs are. They take it all in stride, and for them it's just another outing. And then for other dogs, they may need to do that several times before they're ever entered in a trial. Yeah, well, and it lays the essential groundwork for having a strong enough bond to execute this, you know, challenging behavior of competing in agility. If you if you don't take those small steps, then you might be missing out on building that bond which will support your dog and being able to do what you're asking. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So I'm curious about, because you've had so many dogs that you've done agility with all the way back to your villa in Amsterdam. Yeah, yeah. Bella. Bella, like like Bartok or Bartok, Bela Fleck, the Hungarian name, and they're Hungarian dogs. And so his name was Bella. Was there a specific influence? Was it, was it one of the. Was it the Bartok or the Fleck or did you just. I would say if I was talking to a classical musician, I would say like Bela Bartok, and I would if I was talking to somebody else who might know, um, you know, more like I recently heard him in concert here in Fort Collins, Bela Fleck, and he was playing. It was like world music, you know, he was it was fantastic. But I think he's probably more like a folk musician. Yeah. World musician now I love that. Yeah. So anyway, I don't I we, we're looking for a Hungarian name and I just like the name Bela. I think it means clown. I really Marian, I have that in my mind because that was so long ago. That was that we would have gotten him. 35 years ago, I think. Wow. Maybe. Maybe even longer. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, I tangent, I digress, but all the way back to Bella. Yes. How what differences did you notice in your relationships with your various dogs once you started doing sports with them? Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because I like a lot of people who are in dog sports. Each dog I get, I have the idea, like, I would like for this to be my next agility dog, or if it's if, you know, if you do scent work, nose work, if you do rally or flyball or whatever. Um, you know, a lot of us look for qualities in a litter of puppies or an a rescue dog or, you know, whatever. We're looking for certain qualities that might make a good sport dog. And I could talk about those another time. But I think in terms of the way my relationship develops with them. So first and foremost, my dogs are companions. First and foremost, they are members of my family. They, um, you know, sleep in the bed with us. They they cuddle, they, you know, we take them on way more. They my dogs go on way more hikes and walks with us and runs in the the field out back than any agility training. That's a very small portion of their week. But I want a dog that I can live with and that I enjoy being around. And so I think that depends on each person has their own likes, you know, things that they're drawn to in a potential dog. I do agility and love watching my dogs turn on to agility, and I'm always really proud of them. You know, after a weekend of trialing, I'm like, oh man, he didn't miss a single weave pull all weekend. That was awesome. Or for Sally, who's just starting out like, Sally held his stay at the start line. You know, twice today because we did two runs and he held his stay at the start line. So there are things that I'm proud of, and I'm happy to come home from a trial and show videos to my husband and my son and be like, you know, look what we did this weekend. But I realized this summer and I think I might have told you this story. I broke my foot and ankle not even doing something exciting like rock climbing. I did it, I just. Stepped on a rock wrong in my yard and rolled off and I broke my foot and ankle. June 1st. It was the beginning. Kind of the beginning of summer. And, um, it was not a good way to start the summer. It put a lot of things in perspective for me in terms of my work, because my agility teaching, I'm on my feet the whole time I'm moving heavy equipment. I relied on other people for a couple of months to help me do a lot of that. Um, as I as I was recovering. But I realized that the thing I was going to be most upset if I didn't recover completely from the injury is how much I was going to miss. Hiking with my dogs. Walking with my dogs. Yes, agility was on my radar. Like, what if I can't go back to doing agility? But I really like it. Was the not being able to walk them by myself that was really hard. And so that was some perspective for me this summer. I do love each of my dogs individually, like as individuals. They have taught me so much. You know, there's that saying like. Well, you've you've interviewed Denise Finzi and her big thing is training the dog in front of you. Right. So recognizing that each dog is an individual and there's no cookie cutter way to do anything. Yes. Um, but I also feel like each dog teaches you something. Mhm. They come into your life whether you needed that lesson at that moment, you get it. You get the lessons from, from each dog. Dogs have a lot to teach us. But each one of my dogs I have a, you know, a personal relationship with. Mhm. Um, and some of it is based in agility and the training that we do. But the majority of my training I would say is how to be a good companion. And I want to if people say what should I teach my new puppy if I want to do agility with them, I'm like, teach them how to be a good dog. You know, just love on that puppy and enjoy that time because it's so it goes by so fast. Mhm. Does you I mean yeah we say that about kids too like don't blink because they're going to be asking for the car keys whatever. It's even shorter with a puppy you get like well the little itty bitty puppy. I mean most dogs are looking like adults by the time they're six, eight months a year old, but the time, it just goes by really fast and there's no rush. You know, I scallywag is now 18 months old and he's done a couple of trials just for fun. Like, let's see, let's see where we are. Let's see if we can go in the ring and have a blast because training him as a blast. But let's see if we can go in and have as much fun when we're at a trial. Mhm. Um, and so we've just done a couple of fun runs, you know, in a, in a trial setting. Everybody's timeline is different. Every dog's timeline is different. So while I have friends and colleagues who have dogs the exact same age as scallywag who are running full courses, and then I have people, you know, who are starting agility with their two year old dog, or their four year old dog or their eight year old dog, and they're, you know, they're just now starting out. There's no right or wrong. You know, there's you do what you can on the in the time that you have. Um, and for most of us, we're not training our dogs professionally full time. You know, I am doing that now, but that's not what I did. For my whole life. I've. I worked and raised kids and. Try to manage a house and and everything else. And so my dog's got a little tiny little piece of that. But boy, I carved that time out and I guarded it. That talk about resource guarding, I resource guarded that time with, you know, where I would go to a class, a weekly class or a monthly lesson? Yeah. Um, or when I would go to 1 or 2 days of a of an agility trial once a month, I, I carved out that time for myself and for my dogs. Um, and I joke that I didn't probably didn't do my very best training back then because I just didn't have the time. But, um, we muddled through and we had a blast, and I learned a lot, and I kept doing it. Yeah. Yeah. It's about relationship first. Right? And sports can be a way to fulfill that relationship in another way. But there's just one way to do that. And there are so many other ways that can be really simple and as simple as taking your dog to a sniff spot where they can run around in an open field and you can be there and be a dog. Yeah, right. And just be a dog. And, um, you can just appreciate watching them move their bodies how they want to because they, our dogs don't often get to do that with leash laws and that kind of thing. They're they're usually attached to us. But, um, I love watching my dogs run Just flat out run and navigate their surroundings. It's the best. I love watching it. It's like they're on a roller coaster. Yeah, okay. And, you know, there's so much like Scali. What do you have in your mouth? And it's, you know, a dead bone. Look what I found or something, you know? Yeah. So there's. I think I think those are really good to keep in mind that, like, the the opportunities that we give our dogs to be dogs, our it's super. It's it's the most important thing. Um, and if they're not getting that then I think everything else suffers a little bit how they are in the house, how they do in their training. Um, you know, I think that's really, really important. And so I look to people who, you know, different trainers and, and, um, dog behavior experts and that kind of thing who really advocate for, um, making sure that your dogs get a chance to have a decompression walk or, uh, a run, you know, just safe, safely off leash. Um, activity. Um, those are super important. I'll say one more thing, too. About time, because I have people who say, oh, I'm so sorry I didn't do my homework this week. And, you know, we thinking about timeline. I mean, of course, if you're able to devote a couple training sessions a day, every day, you're going to make a lot of progress. Um. But you're still going to make progress, even if you only are able to come to an hour long class a week, and that's all you're able to do. You'll still make progress. It'll just be a little slower. Um, and I think as long as people are comfortable with that, I never want people apologizing for not being able to train in between things because life happens in life. You know, we're we're generally a lot of us are just busy. We're busy people. And we might be busy doing other dog things too. You know, like, I know that agility class is not the only thing people are doing with their dogs, for sure. And so I joke that if I had one more day of the week every week, I would do. I would do a nose work class or scent work with my dogs because it's something I, um, started doing actually during the pandemic, because there was a woman, a local trainer here who was able to do all of her classes outdoors. When we had indoor portions of the class, it was with the big roller door up. And so there was a lot of like fresh air, and we all sat far apart from each other. And I learned so much taking that class with, um, at the time. I took the class with my dog T-Rex, my cattle dog, and my son Owen, who I think at the time was 16, took it with young pirate who was maybe a year old year and a half old because Owen needed to get out of the house because we were having like lockdown stuff and he wasn't in school. And it was a way for us to do something. You know, outside the house. But it also taught us so much about dog body language and yes, oh my gosh, that that teamwork. Because the dog is the expert there, you know what I mean. And and nose work. The dog is the one who who is driving the bus. And we just have to recognize the signs that they have found the odor. And oh my gosh, I was so amazed. And so at some point in my life, I would like to do more of that is like a sport where I'm it's it's so much about the dog's instinct. And yeah, there is that we can't even comprehend. I mean, we just have to kind of follow along and recognize the signs that they're telling us. Yes, I think it's amazing to watch dogs use their natural instincts that way. I think I may have told you before, but I've done just drop in novice barn hunt classes with Otto, and I love watching him. He happens to have. He's a very expressive dog. So yes, he is. Yeah. So it's my job of recognizing when he's caught onto a scent is not difficult. I can see when he's got it, but it's so fun to watch because I had nothing to do with teaching him how to recognize that scent and follow it to where it's coming from. Nothing at all. It's something he knows how to do himself, and that's an amazing thing. So cool. I also I have to give. Before we wrap up, I have to give you credit for all of your amazing names that you have for your dogs. You've mentioned all of Melissa's dogs names are so good. Scallywag pirate T-Rex. You've told me about Friday. Before Friday I had Ruby, my kids named Ruby. She was. She came to us. Her name was freckles. Oh, and she was. She was a kind of spotted. She had some some freckles, some spots. But they named her because they were little at that time. I think they were five and nine when we got her. Yeah, they named her Ruby Red Freckles Princess. That was her name. And Ruby was the kind of part that we called her by. That was her. Her nickname was Ruby. I love that pirate. I love pirate was named by his breeders. And when they were like, what are you going to name him? And I was like, well, I like pirate. And he looks, you know, he has like a black. Patch. Kind of. Yeah. His his face and it fit and I liked it. And so I have a pirate and then scallywag is his nephew so I would really. Yes that. Yeah. And scallywag has been on my list of puppy names for a long time, having been in the Navy and all that stuff. Um, scallywag has been on my list and since I had a pirate and I was like, oh, it was perfect. It is perfect. And it suits him so well too. He's such a scallywag. I mean, really is he really is. He's, um, you know, he's mischievous and always looking for something to get into. And so he's also like, he's just a happy, like, happy boy, too. I really love, love watching him and watching him work with you. He's he's a great dog. Thanks I love him. He's he's like he's so much fun and I just can't wait to see like because I think it's partly he's just so fast. He does everything. He throws himself into everything like 100%. So he's he's a lot of fun. I'm enjoying working with him. Totally. Yeah I one of these I one of these days. I would love to see your whole list of names. Just because all of your names have been great. I'll. I'll share it with you. There's some, you know, some dogs you meet and you're like, oh, that that's that's the name that you chose. But I tend to have to meet them first before naming. I have a list that is way longer than I will ever have that many dogs. Sadly, I just will not have. I probably have, I don't know 50 names on that list. Boy and girl names. Um, and I probably I can't imagine that I will have 50 more dogs in my life unless I win the lottery and can, you know, open up some kind of sanctuary for dogs and buy all the properties around you and just turn everything into a separate little facility, I love it. That would be a dream. If you liked this episode, don't forget to share it with a friend and remember that the best way to motivate me to create more is to leave a five star review to make sure you don't miss the next one. Follow and subscribe to the subwoofer on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you're listening. If you have thoughts or questions about what we talked about in this episode, I would love to hear from you genuinely. Feel free to DM me on the social channels for this podcast, or send an email to the subwoofer podcast at gmail.com. We'll see you next time on the subwoofer.