E178: We're All On a Journey - FDSA Training Assistant Interviews

Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods.

Today we'll be talking to several teaching assistants who are helping with classes this term — and I should have asked you all how to pronounce your last names before I tried to read them, but I'm going to give it a shot. We've got Sara Seymour, Ana Cilursu, Linlin Cao, Ann Smorado, and Lizzie Lang. Hi all, welcome to the podcast!

who taught me quite a lot about clicker training. That was probably my first introduction to using the clicker. I went from there and kept on learning and made most of my mistakes with him and learned with each dog that's come since then.

Melissa Breau: What about you, Linlin?

Linlin Cao: Although I started dog training, my dog training time is pretty short, less than four years, but I also went through balanced training. I think in reactive dog training, unfortunately, the aversive training or balanced training is still very popular, because after you put a prong collar on, you put an e-collar on, they suppress the behavior.

To an owner, to me, back then, when I don't know anything, it's like a magical tool because once I put a prong collar on, my dog stopped lunging, stopped barking. So I was happy for a little bit, until a couple of months later, Niko's reactivity, I feel his anxiety just cannot hold it anymore. There were several instances, luckily he didn't bite anyone, but I feel it was close, that no matter how strong stimuli applied, he just wouldn't hold, I cannot hold, because he was over threshold too much.

Even when things were going well, I didn't like it. Every time I popped the prong collar, every time I pressed the button on the e-collar, I'd feel bad. It was not a good experience for me as well, because I was told I have to be on top, I have to press the button and watch him all the time, and at the same time, I feel bad for him. I couldn't do that.

Also, I have a background in science. I always want to understand how things work, the science behind it, and I never got to understand why reactivity happens or how to change the behavior while I was using the balanced training tools.

Since his anxiety was over the roof, I could not hold it anymore, so I bought all the books on the market about positive and reactive dog training. That's the first time I started to understand what is behavior and why they're doing this and how to tend to their emotions. Suddenly everything made sense. I threw away all the tools and never used them again. I would never do that again. So that's my journey. I changed to positive and never looked back.

Melissa Breau: Then you got your certification in everything else they could teach.

Linlin Cao: Part of me, I feel bad putting Niko through that, but I think because of my experience I have used these tools and I have really… I like to research everything I do, and I read a lot of their blogs, so I understand why they don't work. So when I work with clients and sometimes they want to use more aversive methods, I can explain to them. I understand why they want to use it, and then I can explain to them why they won't work, even if it seems to work right now. So I think that's a valuable experience for me, although I wish I'd never done that to Niko.

Melissa Breau: I hear you. I'd love to talk about a little bit what you have accomplished with your dogs, and what's the dog-related accomplishment that you feel proudest of? Sara, do you want to start this one?

Sara Seymour: I struggled with this one because I haven't got any major titles I've achieved with any dogs, because Ripley is only my third dog. I've had three dogs that I've worked with.

Ripley's a working Cocker Spaniel. He comes from Field Trial champion lines. He's well bred to work and to work hard. He's a hard hunting dog, he wants to be out, he wants to be working. I'm genuinely really proud of what I've achieved with him over the last five years in terms of getting a dog I can live with and a dog that I can take anywhere.

We walk off lead anywhere and everywhere, and I can just take him and go, and I know that I can't lose him. He's going to come back when he's called, he's not going to go and bother people, he's not interested in other dogs, he'll do all and any of the things I decide I want to train.

A couple of years ago I did a big post of all his achievements at the end of one year, and he's got certificates and titles. He's got TEAM, he's got tricks, he's got scent work, he's got rally, he's got agility, he's got parkour. He has so many different things that he's achieved. So I am proud of what I've managed to achieve with a dog that potentially could have been an absolute nightmare. And he is still sometimes.

I am proud of what I've achieved, and I recognize people who input that and helped with that over the last few years to get us to a place where I can pick up a few treats and say, "Let's try this," and he's like, "What are we doing?" He will try anything and everything. So I am proud of what I've managed to achieve with him.

Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Ana?

Ana Cilursu: I've had dogs, as I said, for over twenty years. Each one of them teaches you something, they bring you something, they leave something when they go. This is going to be hard.

I think that the thing that I treasure the most was when Zoe and I got our NW3. It was such a ride. She was probably the smartest dog I ever had. She could read me like a book. She was willing to try anything. She would look at me if I screwed up like, "You… oh. What did you do?" She taught me so much. She had a lot of baggage when I adopted her. She was a rescue, and she came from an absolutely fantastic foster home, but she had a lot of issues.

Zoe and I grew up Fenzi together. I had focused initially on her training, and there were a lot of eye-opening experiences where I realized I really need to focus on her behavior, her mental state, her emotional state. Zoe was very reactive. If you were looking for the dog whose crate is bouncing, we would be the ones in the corner in the back of the room with the sheets and all the panels covering us. If somebody went by, Zoe would bark.

We had to go through a lot together. We did everything. There's nothing we didn't try. When we first started nosework, it was like this whole new world opened up for us. It just strengthened our relationship so much. There were a lot of ups and downs in our training, in our trialing, but when we got that NW3, everything came together. The teamwork, the relationship, everything that we had learned — if you could wrap it up into one ribbon, it wasn't the ribbon; it was what the ribbon represented, the culmination of a journey that she and I had grown up together, and that, to me, was the most important thing.

She is very missed, I can tell you. It's hard. It's hard. But oh my God, we took every class we could. I just wanted to learn and she was like a sponge, and it just made everything so much better.

To have gotten to that point, and I really have to credit Stacy for first suggesting we do nosework. When Zoe had CPLO surgery, I thought our career, our life, was over, and the dog would never be able to heel or jump or do anything again. Stacy said, "Why don't you try nosework, since she's going to be in a crate for eight weeks." Stacy was there with us every step of the way, and Stacy was there the day we got our NW3. There was a lot of ugly crying in the parking lot that day.

So to have gotten that title with that dog, and to have Stacy there on that day, is one of, if not the most memorable dog memory I have. And that one's going to be tough to beat, like I said. So that would be it.

Melissa Breau: It certain sounds that way. It sounds like it's going to be a hard experience to top.

Ana Cilursu: It is. But don't tell Axel. Don't tell him.

Melissa Breau: Nobody has to tell him. Lizzie, what about you?

Lizzie Lang: Yogi is quite a difficult dog. He took me away from agility. He just wasn't taking to it. So we discovered heelwork and obedience, and then we started to compete in rally and started off just to fill in the gaps when there was no other competition, and we really enjoyed it.

He used to get really over it, but I thought it was over-excitement, but I've since learned that he was stressed. He would go in the ring and do crazy zoomies and then leave, and I thought I would never get to compete properly with him.

Last November we went to the tryouts for the Crufts team and he was amazing. He went the best he's ever done. Everything fell into place and we got selected and he really put everything we've learned from the classes we've taken and he went to Crufts and did the best round of his life and won his individual class and helped the team come second overall.

Ana Cilursu: Fantastic!

Lizzie Lang: It was a dream come true, so I was a bit emotional that day.

Ann Smorado: Wow.

Lizzie Lang: It all fell into place, but it just all came together.

Sara Seymour: The video is fantastic. Lizzie shared it at the time, and I know it's on YouTube or wherever it is, and it's a fantastic video, Yogi giving a big bounce just before he starts.

Melissa Breau: When I post the podcast, Lizzie, you'll have to share the video again so we can all watch and be awed.

Ann Smorado: I think I watched it at the time when you posted it, but I'd like to see it again.

Melissa Breau: That's awesome. What about you, Linlin?

Linlin Cao: My proudest, I think, is my relationship with Niko. He went from this super-anxious and stressed dog that every day has reactions, he had a lot of triggers, like cars, people, dogs of course, noises, noises of cars, bikes, skateboards, scooters, basically everything that was outside was a trigger. He went from that dog that cannot leave the neighborhood, and I probably had an ugly cry every night, to this confident and happy dog to go to trials, and also a very easy dog to live with.

I can take him to hike, and with friends, with other dogs that he never met before. I sometimes take him to patios to eat with us. He loves that because he loves to get food. I have a picture of him sitting next to me and trying to steal my sandwich on a chair on the patio.

I think our relationship … I feel proud that it can happen of how he is today, and also very lucky to have him to help me to be the trainer I am today.

That's why I got Sunny, the second dog. For a long time I thought that he couldn't trial. For a long time I didn't take any trial videos if I go, because it gave me a lot of stress and I don't want to watch it. It took me a year to watch our first ORT, Odor Recognition Test, video. It was a disaster. He was panting and pulling and whining the whole three minutes, so it took me a year to watch that.

But after watching, I realized how much progress he's made, so I put two videos together, the first ORT video, which is a total disaster, and ten months later when we were at NW1 container search. I think everybody who saw that video probably couldn't recognize the same dog. He was bouncy, happy, and found the odor super-fast.

I love ribbons, everybody loves ribbons, but when I think about it, I'm just glad I have him, and I'm glad day-to-day life is very easy to have him around. Since I'm working from home, it's super-easy. He's chill during the day, he just naps on my feet all day, follows me if I get up to get water. He's a really nice dog to have around.

Melissa Breau: Ann, what about you?

Ann Smorado: That first dog, that yellow Lab, that got me down this dog sport path to begin with when I joined that rally class, my proudest accomplishment was putting a utility dog title on him. And a MACH, but the UD is the proudest accomplishment, and I think it's because … I know it's because that dog taught me that I can train a dog. If someone else can teach their dog to do these five things, then I can teach my dog to do those same five things.

Utility and AKC obedience … it's got this … I can't think of the right word, but it's got this mystique about it. It's this class that not everybody can do, and only the best trainers can get their dog in the utility ring. In the classes I went to, it was almost like we were teaching our dogs utility skills, but it almost felt like, "Don't think you're ever going to get there." Not that anybody was ever actively trying to discourage me, but that was the underlying message I got, and I just thought, "I don't see why I can't do that." And so we did.

Utility is a lot of work. You have to be very devoted to utility. You have to want to do obedience to do utility, but it isn't out of reach. And then later on I started doing agility with him, and I couldn't figure out how you could teach a dog how to weave. And I thought, if they can teach their dog how to weave, I can teach my dog how to weave.

The whole thing with utility was the big one, but the whole journey with that dog taught me that I can teach my dog things too. If other people can do it, I can do it too. I just have to break it down and take the time. I don't know. He was a special dog. He was a very special dog too.

Melissa Breau: It feels like the one takeaway from everybody's little story was that it's incredible what you can achieve if you stick with it. Everybody's got that component to their proudest moment of sometimes you have to stick with it, and where you start is not where you finish.

Ann Smorado: Absolutely.

Sara Seymour: I think generally the hardest dogs teach you the most, as well. I've often heard people say, "You don't get the dog you want. You get the dog you need." In the early days I said, "I don't know what it was I needed."

Linlin Cao: I remember every night, just drinking some wine, I think I drank the most wine when working on the reactive. I'd just tell myself, "Tomorrow is a new day. Let's start over again. I have to do it because I love this dog, and I want to try my best to make it work."

Melissa Breau: I want to talk a little bit about the TA stuff a little bit more now that we've had the chance to get to know all of you a little bit. As a TA, you help the Bronze and Silver students in the Facebook study groups and the class, answering questions, watching videos when they need help, or they need a little reassurance, or they get a little stuck basically just helping them stay on course. I know a lot of students struggle with sticking with a full six-week class. Especially if they're not a Gold, they don't feel they have that accountability. Any tips or advice for working through a class consistently or getting the most out of the study groups? Linlin, do you want to start this one?

Linlin Cao: This is a constant struggle and challenge. What helped me is to make a plan in advance. I found if, in the beginning of the week, I read through our lectures and I can write down homework exercises I need to do, I just put into each day, it's a little bit easier for me to stick with it. Today I have some time, I need to read the lecture and then do the exercise, so that's just harder to do because I spend more time. It feels like it.

So I feel prepare in the beginning of the week. And of course I will go back to review a lecture if I cannot think it through or I have questions. I think each day for the session as well, I find it's easier to stick with it if I have a set time. Dinnertime is easiest for me. I set aside part of my dog's dinner, and then if I don't work with them, then they might be hungry. So setting a time, and setting treats aside helps me stick with it.

Also because I have a weekly plan, then I can have a daily plan when I want to work on. But I still struggle, so I love to learn more from others.

Melissa Breau: Lizzie, what about you?

Lizzie Lang: When I first started taking Bronze classes, I'd get quite overwhelmed. I would get around to Week 2 and still needing to work on those exercises when everyone else was progressing, and that's when I would give up. So I've learned to not worry about where everyone else is and work at your own pace. If you're still on Week 2 when everyone else is on Week 5, that's fine. You will get there when you're ready.

Melissa Breau: I like that. That's an important piece of advice to remember, too, is that rushing helps nobody — not you, not your dog. Sara?

Sara Seymour: I would say getting into a habit of videoing everything, even if you never watch it back, just gets you used to it being there, and for the dog as well, depending on what you're doing. It does mean then if something comes up and you've either got a burning question about it or you're not progressing, not having it on video, or if something amazing happens, again not having it on video. That's been a big change for me in the last few years is nearly everything I do gets video-ed. I've got things set up so that I can easily do that as well.

And I think similar to what Lizzie was saying, there's no such thing as behind. You're exactly where you need to be, because people do panic that everybody's moved on and progressed. If I think about mimicry last term, there were certainly people that really struggled getting past or needed to keep working on the earlier parts of it. Then the other stages do click in, the more that you put the work into those early stages. There's no point rushing it. It won't get you there any faster. So just remembering that there's no such thing as behind.

And then as TA, when I'm doing feedback on videos or questions or anything like that, I try to put a task in there, or a question in there, to encourage them to follow up, to try and get more people going back and then doing another video to try and keep people on track.

I've seen it in groups that I'm in, the TA posting, "It's Week 3. How is everybody getting on with exercise X," and keeping them encouraged. I do think it makes a big difference. If I look at Cookie Jar Games last term compared to the previous ones I've TA'd for, there's much more involvement going on there. I think that will build as more people get used to that and get better at that and hopefully making the best use of it and getting the accountability.

Melissa Breau: Ann, what about you?

Ann Smorado: My advice for the Bronze … it really follows along everyone else. I also say video all your training. Just get in the habit of doing that. I do recommend that you do watch it. Maybe you don't feel like watching it right away. I know when I have a training session that I don't feel super-good about, I probably don't watch it for a couple of days and that's OK.

At some point I'll decide to watch it, and nine times out of ten, when I watch it, I realize it's not as bad as I thought. It really looks a lot better than I thought. So I think it's just a good habit to get into. And really that's where the growth occurs — when you do the homework, video it, look at it. Boy, it really helped me grow in a big way as a trainer, and I think that's my advice to the Bronze students too.

The second piece of advice I give them … well, probably the first piece, actually, is just pretend, just tell yourself you're enrolled at Gold. You broke your piggy bank and you got in that class at Gold. You can even write that in your checkbook, that you're in Gold, and work it like you were a Gold student, and put your questions and your videos in study group. If you do that, you're going to make a ton of progress.

Like Sara said, there's no getting behind. You are where you are. But you're going to make a ton of progress if you work it. And if you don't, if it just sits in your library untouched, it's not going to do you much good.

Sara Seymour: Just coming back on the video bit, and that's come out of being a TA as well, I don't know about the other guys, but I've become much, much better at reviewing videos. I'm so used to looking at everybody else's videos and reviewing them and picking up the key points on there. That's made a huge difference in my own training. I can then go back and look at my videos more objectively than perhaps I would have done. The TA role has made a huge difference.

Ann Smorado: I also tell people to try to … and I know most people can't follow all the Gold threads. It can be a lot, overwhelming, it's a lot, especially if it's a bigger class. But if you can find one thread to follow, you can learn a ton. One or two, maybe. I think that's really helpful for Bronze students too.

Melissa Breau: Ana, do you have anything you want to add?

Ana Cilursu: First of all, I would like to thank all the Bronze students and all the Silver students that are in the study groups, because they bring such depths to the class itself. They certainly keep me on my toes. I think they've made me a better trainer and a better observer.

To Ann's point and Sara's point about being better at watching other people's videos, these are students that prior to the TA program, we were all sort of a support group, but people didn't have any way of getting objective feedback. And now that they do, I find that people are very engaged.

The students are like cheerleaders for each other. They watch each other's videos, they comment on each other's videos, and the Bronze students and the Silver students that are active in classes, at least the classes that I have been a TA for, they have driven change in the actual curriculum.

They have brought out some incredibly good points, some things that we've all taken a step back and go, "What if we did this?" Or "What if we added this lecture?" And I think they've contributed a lot to the growth of the program in general. I try to encourage them to be aware of their own journey and where they are, to participate whenever they can, but most of all to take advantage of the camaraderie and the support that they get from the group.

As a TA, I can provide feedback and I ask questions and I post on a weekly basis, "It's Week 2, this is what we're doing." Sometimes I share videos of my own dogs, or if somebody brings up a really good point, I'll turn it into a post so that everybody gets the benefit of it, because I recognize that just like you can't follow all the Golds, you also can't follow all the Bronzes.

Even in my classes, I ask the students to create their own threads. They do an intro post, and their videos and my feedback all go under that thing. It's easier to find them, and it's easier for others to find a particular video. It's very hard to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. So they are very engaged with each other, and I think as a result, the class becomes rich in knowledge and in experience, and they feel empowered to continue.

I think that's one of the strong points of the TA program is we have given the students the empowerment to be more active and to be more accountable to themselves for their training, because they see other people posting and it's not about "Are we all on the same page?" It's really more about them staying engaged in the process, and I think that is one of the most important things that the program brings. And I think the students learn that.

For me, personally, the opportunity to learn from all these wonderful people and watch them grow — I have students that are now in the NW200 class that were students in the 101 study group, and they've come through every single class. I sit there and I watch videos, and I cheer and I clap and I cry, and I'm so excited for these people. I think that's what is of extreme value for those students to be able to share that with each other and also to have us as their cheerleaders. I think that's huge.

And it's really an honor to be able to do it and to watch these people and to be a part of their journey. I consider it to be an honor. They allow me into their world, into their training — the pajama videos, the "We didn't clean the floor" videos, the "Oh my God, my kitchen is a mess" videos that we've all posted. These people are putting themselves out there and I think it's absolutely fantastic. I really do. I really applaud all the Bronze students and all the study groups. I'm particularly fond of the ones that I've been following along, and they all know who they are.

Melissa Breau: I want to end things off with a favorite piece of training advice. I'll have you each share a piece of training advice that has stuck with you or that means a lot. Sara, can we start with you?

Sara Seymour: Thinking back over some of the stuff I've said earlier, I think it's to listen to your dog, really, and also advocate for them. Because I've done agility, that's all I've done. For 25 years I've always done agility with dogs, and then I suddenly got dogs that didn't really want to do agility, and I kept saying, "But I want to do agility."

Once I took a step back and started listening to him, it wasn't just about not wanting to do agility. It was like, "I like a toy at home, but I don't like a toy out of the house. You need to find something that I want to work with." So taking a step back and working with his reinforcers, and then working on what we wanted to train as a sport or anything like that — that's what made the biggest difference is finding a reinforcement strategy that worked, and that worked anywhere and everywhere and all the time.

We can train anything now because I know how to reinforce it. At the end of the day, it's the learner that chooses the reinforcer. And so I think that's been the biggest thing is listening to the dog, and understanding and working from that basis, rather than going thickheaded straight into "I want to do this."

Melissa Breau: Sometimes our dogs don't always agree with our plans.

Sara Seymour: No, no.

Melissa Breau: Ana?

Ana Cilursu: It's certainly not an original thought, I'm probably blatantly taking it from someone, but it's something that really meant a lot to me, which is, "Forget the mistake, but remember the lesson." Coming from someone who has made many, and who has learned a lot of lessons, I think that sometimes is really the hardest thing. We focus so much on what we did wrong that we tend to lose sight of what that taught us. Once you can change that, and you can get to a point and say, "I'm sorry that happened, but I'm glad that happened, because I learned so much from it," I think that's a really, really important point that we sometimes lose sight of.

There will be mistakes, there will be many, and your dog will forgive them all. And if you're not sure, throw food and move on. I think that is also a really great piece of advice. If I do something and I'm not really sure did I do that correctly, well, here's a cookie, let's start over. The dogs will certainly appreciate that.

But for me, the hardest part has been to look at the lesson and not the mistake. And so if I could impart a little bit of that to other people that are also on their journeys, wherever they may be, that would be my takeaway. Forget the mistake, but remember the lesson.

Sara Seymour: That reminded me of my other favorite thing, which I think I heard it both from Hannah and from Sara Stremming as well: If in doubt, throw food.

Ana Cilursu: Yes, that is totally Hannah, absolutely. The day I read it, I thought, "That's just so brilliant."

Melissa Breau: I do like to think that there's one piece that sometimes people forget, which is if you find that too often you don't know what's going on and you're throwing food, it might be time to stop and look at your lessons. If you find you have to do that more often than not, it might be time to rethink your training plan a little bit. But I think that's a great piece of advice for most people. If something goes wrong, it gives you time to think. Linlin, do you have a favorite piece of advice?

Linlin Cao: I think this one was probably said in this podcast already is, "Train the dog in front of you." My understanding of it is the behavior, emotion, sports — the science behind it is the same. How dogs learn, how we change the behavior, how we change an emotion is the same, but each dog is different, and their environment is different, and when I work with clients, the owners are different.

When I work with the dog, there's no one formula it's based off. I always have to adjust my setup, even sometimes exercise and training plan, just based on that dog. If we understand the goal, the final goal is there. How we get to that goal should be different because each dog is different.

I still remind myself very often because it's easier as a trainer to have "This is a formula that you have to follow." I had a trainer like that to work with. I worked with a trainer like that before, and I know that can be frustrating to the owner and to the dog, so I often remind myself that every time I work with a behavior, and with everything, actually.

Melissa Breau: I think Levi's job on this planet, my English Cocker, is to teach me that lesson over and over and over again. He does not work well on formulas. Lizzie, do you have a lesson for us?

Lizzie Lang: Similar to what Sara said, I always did agility, and when I got Yogi, that was my plan for him, and he had other ideas. It took my friend to point out that he was doing it because I asked him to, not because he particularly wanted to. Once we found a sport that we both enjoyed, I have this amazing dog that can do anything.

Melissa Breau: And Ann?

Ann Smorado: I love what Ana said: "Don't remember the mistake. Remember the lesson." I'm going to remember that. But a really good piece of training advice — there's been so many over the years. I don't know if someone said it, because I had to take my dog out, but Amy Cook once said, "Every time you take your dog out to train, you're teaching them how to feel," or something like that.

When I heard that, I thought, "Whoa." That's a really important lesson to me, because as we all know, every time we take our dogs out and we're training them for whatever we're training them for, if they're not feeling good about whatever's going on, and we stick with our agenda and push it through, we're just teaching the dog to have really bad feelings about whatever it is we want to do.

I've made that mistake a number of times, all with good intentions, of course, but that really changed everything for me, and it helped me. And it's hard. I still don't always … I have a hard time doing it. I'm proud to say I'm much better about it, but it's really helped me learn to recognize when a training scenario or a place or a moment is just not working for my dog today, and accepting that and just moving on.

They're still really young, but I can see the change in how I work with him and how he is, which could partly be him, but I also have seen the change in Hartley since I've woven that piece of advice into my day-to-day training.

Melissa Breau: It's an important one. I'm glad you brought it up. Thank you all so much for coming on the podcast! This was excellent and a lot of fun.

Ann Smorado: It always is. Nothing like meeting up in the afternoon to talk with five dog-training friends.

Sara Seymour: Thank you. It was a pleasure and an honor. Definitely an honor.

Ana Cilursu: Fantastic. Thank you so much.

Melissa Breau: Thank you, ladies, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in! We'll be back next week. I'll be talking to Barbara Lloyd about trauma in dogs.

If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available.

Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!