E207: Amy, Nancy, and Megan - "Does Size Matter (in a sports dog)?"

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 Amy Cook, Nancy Gagliardi Little, and Megan Foster about the ups and downs of training dogs of different sizes.

Hi all, welcome back to the podcast!

, so I have never allowed that. When they're puppies I let them play by themselves and run by themselves, but not together. So they totally understand that.

Differ tried to entice them to play, but they already know not to, so she wasn't reinforced for it. She plays with the cat, and the cat is bigger than her. When she came into this house, she was five pounds, four-and-a-half, under five pounds. She's tiny. So yeah, safety is a big concern. We have steps, a full height of steps downstairs to let them out. We have a ramp there, so I have to be really careful and I really trained that, so that Differ goes down and stops a few steps while the Border Collies go ahead, because the Border Collies will run over her if I'm not careful.

So there's a bit of training there, and I agree with Megan and Amy that that was a bit of a surprise for me. I knew that it's an issue with bigger dogs in the house, but it does create a lot of anxiety in me, because all it takes is one mistake and you've got an injury.

Melissa Breau: And with a little dog, it's going to be a more serious injury, right?

Nancy Gagliari Little: Very serious.

Amy Cook: You can splat them into a psoas injury so easily, and psoas is such a hard one to come back from. You don't want that.

Melissa Breau: Would any of you say that one or the other, either your big dogs or your smaller dogs, have been harder to train for any particular reason? Go for it, Amy.

Amy Cook: I think that because they're such personal examples, they're likely to be n's of one or whatever …

Melissa Breau: That's why there's three of you here.

Amy Cook: Right. Personalities aside, if I think of it as the kind of dogs they are — because Whippets aren't always the easiest; you have to modify a decent amount — a thing that I really enjoy that comes a little more, so far in my experience, pre-installed in some of the smalls, is that if you're talking about a toy dog, you might be engaging with a dog who doesn't have a long breed history of having some other job other than you.

If we're talking about a toy dog who was not bred to rat, if we're talking about a toy dog who was not bred to guard the house or whatever, a lot of times the entire reason they were bred and chosen is because they doted on you or they liked you. They found you relevant. I find a lot of the smalls I work with, and this one, my own in particular, has more of an orientation toward finding me more interesting, finding me more fascinating than some of the other things.

It's not like she doesn't also love to chase the other things or do other things or whatever, but she came out of the box with a lot more "People are really relevant, and what people do are really relevant." I like that I wasn't having to work against "I also want to circle those things up," or "I also want to make sure I kill that," or "I also want to make sure … whatever … boundaries are maintained." Other things that we bred dogs to do is not a thing I had to work with and work against to build more handler focus. She came out with, "People are great," and "What you're doing is awesome," and "Tell me more about this thing you're doing." That's a real boon.

So people out there who are thinking about whether they want to go smalls, it's not quite just the fact that some of these dogs are smaller in size, but that some of their lineage, some of the point of them, was just to be with you and do stuff with you, and that can rocket your training into a different direction. You're not having to go against rat killing or whatever it is, I don't know. It's not the same thing as with a terrier, because a terrier had a job, and it's not that you can't work with that. But a toy dog's job was to look at you and warm you and follow you around. It can be helpful in training. I really like it.

Megan Foster: That's a great point, Amy. That's a really good point.

Amy Cook: I was really surprised by it. At 12 weeks she was like, "You are the most fascinating thing I've ever seen." That really helps me. I don't have to train focus there. If I'm walking around the house and dogs are sleeping and don't find me interesting, you look for the little and she's like, "Are you about to do something cool?" I know that comes in some of the bigs too. For sure it comes in bigs. But it's just been nice not to have to work against breed-specific challenges. They kind of came with that. I don't know. I like it. I'm sold.

Melissa Breau: Do you want to defend your terriers at all, Megan?

Amy Cook: I love terriers! Defend them, Megan, defend them.

Megan Foster: I don't need to defend that point. I will say it's so difficult to really know, because my most recent, the last ten years, it was Border Collie, Border Collie, terrier, terrier. But some things have come easier for the smalls. I don't know if it's because they're small, or if it's because the breed choices are smarter, or if I'm a better trainer, but as far as that initial … yeah, I'm fighting against their instinct and what they're bred to do.

Both the Border Collies and the terriers really rate, when you're thinking about Border Collies, they're bred to move away from you more and not be so close on the handlers, and the terriers are not coming out of the womb seeking your eye contact. But once you get it, I feel like it's so very intense and they do it super-hard. They're all in. So I don't think it's necessarily a small versus big thing there. It's more the breed that they are. But it was way easier getting eye contact from the terriers than it is with the Border Collies, in my opinion.

Melissa Breau: Do you want to weigh in, Nancy?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: What was the question again? I follow the conversation, but I forget. Was it are the small dogs easier or harder?

Melissa Breau: Yeah, whether you found either your big dogs or your little dogs harder or easier. Has there been something that feels more difficult or significant?

Nancy Gagliari Little: Training-wise, right?

Melissa Breau: Yeah.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: There's a lot of things for the smaller dogs in terms of training, because I think the living together has been talked about quite a bit. I've been training running contacts, and that is so much easier with a smaller dog.

Amy Cook: That's really true. They just take them right down.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: I can't tell you how many times I was going to quit with the bigger dogs, but then all of a sudden it gets better. And so there's not that up and down so much with the small dogs.

Also my fear with the big dogs on very fast teeter and dog walk entry, the smalls can get on that at such an angle and still be safe, so I don't have as much anxiety there as well. So that's another one that's much easier. The other thing is collection and tight turns on jumps are so much easier.

What's harder is that they're also very efficient and they might just back jump too. So you've got to teach them to go around the wing instead of just pinging over the jump and back.

Megan already talked about this, but how much time you have between obstacles is really different. It's easier in one sense with the small dogs because you do have time to save things — not that you should be saving it, that's a handler thing — but you do have more time.

I've found that also you're running a lot more. Even if you train distance skills and commitment, you still, as a handler, run more yardage with a small dog. I don't care how much training you do; that's going to probably happen.

One thing for me that's been really nice about having a small dog, and again just focusing on the training piece, is tunnels. Oh my God, I don't have to put a bazillion tunnel bags down on the tunnels. It doesn't have to be weighted as much, so that helps me.

One other thing that is super-convenient with the little dogs is I can keep my training really clean. Whether it's a seminar or just training, between reps, if I want to go from one point to another and redo, I can just pick her up. With the big dogs, you're not able to do that. It's not as convenient.

Those are the things that are easier in terms of training. I think the others have covered the living with them aspect. I really like Amy's point about always — and I agree, I hadn't thought of that either — is in terms of living or training them, I agree completely that the little dogs just watch you and have natural focus. At least that's the way it was with Differ. I'm her world, basically.

Border Collies are very good about that, too, but they have other things. Movement will excite them, and that distracts them from me. With Differ, that's just not a thing. She's totally focused on me, which is really, really cool.

Amy Cook: It's really cool. How I conceive of it is there's a sense of it's self-reinforcing. I'm self-reinforcing by my existence, and it's not as tightly tied to the fact that I could produce a cookie or might produce a ball. And I sometimes feel with the larger working dogs it can be colored with — nothing is all or nothing — but colored with a sense of, "You might make fun happen outside," "You might open a door," "You might throw a ball," "You might do a thing," and it's because of what reinforcement objects I might bring, and from there we train more focus.

Somehow with a lot of these littles, there's a sense of "It's self-reinforcing to be around you, human." I'll find her laying on my lap, gazing at my face, for no good reason. I'm like, "You're already coming halfway to this training relationship."

With some of my bigs — certainly with the Whippet, but other bigs — if they're on off time in the yard, they find the yard fascinating. When my little is on off time in the yard, even if I'm just cleaning the yard or doing something really boring, she wants to see what that's about and she finds that inherently more interesting.

I think people who are newish trainings or hobby trainers or coming from, "I just want to do some pet stuff and also some sporty stuff," having a dog who is already meeting you in the game of, "Well, I just want to anyway," and I'm not calculating exactly how clean every piece of your mechanics are, or whether you're going to go against what else I want to do, they can be good beginner … not always, but good beginner dogs, even though you're making adjustments, because they're going to reinforce you a little bit more easily than some of the ones whose genetics you're working against to be able to do your sports.

Megan Foster: It's okay. You can say Shrek. You can call him by his name.

Amy Cook: I wasn't even thinking of that! But honestly, because I come from this like you guys, like you Megan, I'm working against the Whippet's ideas, and she has many ideas of what she wants to do with her brain, and many of them do not include people, do not include me. To the extent that she's able to do all the things that she's able to do, it's because I make it worth her while. I train her that these things are going to pay off and these things are really interesting.

I never had to do any of that with my small. She's like, "Food or not, I like what we're doing." And I'm like, wow. Food is a big bonus and it gets more from her. But with the Whippet it's always, when she's done, when we're done, she's like, "Great, now I would love to go deal with the environment. I want to go see what else has changed." When I turn the Chihuahua on to her free time, she's like, "Okay, but are you going to do something with our free time?" It's like, wow. It makes training have this extra ease to it so that I'm not always having to work quite so hard.

I know that's not everybody's story, but people shy away from some of the toy dogs because they're thinking they can't really do anything. But they stare at you a lot, and it's not because you have a tennis ball in your hand. So you know, 6 of 1.

Melissa Breau: I wanted to talk … I know we've done a little of this already, but some more of the pros and cons of each. Both big dogs and small dogs definitely have good things and bad things. Off the top of my head, I'd think bending down for a little dog can stink. They're little, they're close to the floor. Even with Levi, who is a more medium dog, pulling on leash suddenly becomes a lot less of a big deal. Like Nancy was saying earlier, you can either pick them up, or even purely the force with which they're able to pull on leash is less versus a German Shepherd like mine, who wants to pull me across the parking lot. Can you each talk about the pros and cons that you've observed, because you've all had the experience of training now both littles and bigs? Nancy, do you want to start this one?

Nancy Gagliari Little: Sure. Bending down, definitely. There's been times when I've had to take breaks from training.

I think we covered this as cons: the small pieces of food. Oh my God, they drive me crazy. Do I break them up ahead of time? I found a few places that have them in small pieces, which is great. Differ is really good with her toys, so I do mix up a toy and food, but there's times where you use a lot of food and it's just crazy. So that's really one of the biggest for a really small dog, the food.

They're closer to the ground, they notice more things there, so that's an issue. In agility, if they hit a bar, it really hurts. That's happened to Differ a couple of times, and that's a big deal to a small dog, so that's a negative. They get underfoot. We've talked about that before, but in terms of agility, oh my God. I do a lot of blind crosses, but I lose her, "Where are you?" When I do the blind cross, you're looking to reconnect, and I can't find her. That's an issue, huge.

The one thing I'll talk about, too, a little bit more specific to being here and living in Minnesota is the winters here are really awful, and they're a little more sensitive to the cold, so that becomes an issue. Wind can be an issue if you're outside with the little dogs. If it's blowing a lot, if they're on the contacts, it's really unsafe doing that.

The other thing in my area, out in the country, we have a lot of coyotes and owls, so that's a huge issue for me is keeping her safe when she goes out. And training her, I let Lever run around while I train her out in the field because he's really good, he stays out of the way, it's not affecting his training because he's pretty good about that. What I really like that's happened is because of that, she's become very focused on me. She always is, but it's helped her in terms of distractions.

In terms of the pros, boy, portability is a big deal. I really like the portability of the little dog. Amy covered that a little bit more, but I'm thinking in terms of my dogs always have to fly in cargo, the big dogs. If I want to go to Nationals, I usually drive there. With her, if we're doing well enough, she can fly with me, which is awesome.

The other thing I never thought about, but the pros is if she bites me accidentally, she's little, its not gonna break my skin. The Border Collies, if they hit my hand, holy cow, I've got a big cut there. And they live longer. Generally they live longer and they compete longer than the big dogs.

One other thing that's really important to me is, oh my God, poop.

Amy Cook: So tiny.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Oh my God, tiny. I guess that's a pro, but then it could be a con if you were traveling and you're trying to pick it up, too. Anyway, that covers a lot. Feeding …

Amy Cook: So much less food. They're cheaper.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: My goodness, yes. There's a lot of pros and cons.

Melissa Breau: Do you find it difficult with the smaller pieces to, for example, throw the treat and have the dog be able to find it?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: I do not throw food in the grass. When I'm outside I try to use toys as much as possible, or she's being fed on a station or directly to her mouth. I rarely anymore, unless it's a reset, I'll do that inside.

I'm really careful about that because they find crumbs, little teeny tiny crumbs that the Border Collies don't even see. She's scavenging everywhere. It's like, "Where did you find that?" The big dogs don't even notice it. It can be right near them. They're going to find tiny pieces of things. So I generally, with her, do not throw as much. I try to set it up a little different.

Megan Foster: I'm thinking of the dog's perspective of an agility course. The first thing that comes to mind is a teeter. Is the amount of drop of the teeter perceived to be more when you're tiny, and it takes a little bit longer, and it's a little bit more like the tower of terror? Is it more of the tower of terror type thing, like, "When is this going to fall?" We don't know for sure. We can make guesses based on the dog's behavior and reactions to it.

Other things that come to mind are the feet of the jump. They'll often have to jump over the feet of the jump or wrapping or really tight turns, because they'll land closer to the bar. Or they have to change the way they're jumping so that they do land beyond the foot of the jump. Or having to wrap an obstacle that also has the timing equipment on it. It makes the jump so much bigger than it would be for a large dog that would land beyond it. A small dog might use the feet of the weave pole bases more than a large dog might.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: That's a thing around here when you show indoors, if the feet lined up as well and the dog isn't driving ahead. And boy, I've learned a lot about training small dogs based on that.

Megan Foster: The other thing I was thinking about was just placement of rewards, period. If we're rewarding from our hands, it's so easy to reward with a small dog's head up, so that could be damaging to your weave pole performance or to your stopped contact performance or anything, really, just because it's so much easier to let the dog jump on you and grab the cookie from up, dancing on your legs, where we wouldn't do that with a large dog. We have an easier time keeping their heads lower because they don't have to bend as low. So those types of things, I don't know if it's easier or harder, or pro or con, just something you have to be aware of with placement of rewards. Even though you're maybe trying to do the exact same thing, it's a different body movement from the handler.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: It definitely affects the smaller dog more than the bigger dog. You can sort of get away with it with a big dog, but it's still not good.

Megan Foster: That's because the amount of their head coming up is so much more, if they're super small. If you reward with a large dog's head up, it's not the same amount of up as it would be with a small dog. Those are the things I think of as far as training that Nancy didn't already cover. All good thoughts.

Amy Cook: Those are all great thoughts. I was sitting here just listening to the podcast. Great list.

Trying not to cover things you said, but I'm sure I will, but the things on my list tend to be more manage-y, like I really think much more about our safety than I ever had to. I really think about maintaining that there's no interaction between dogs I don't know, no interaction between dogs I don't know on leash, not even a quick sniff, not even if I think it will be okay, because of how much risk we're talking about.

The food thing, yay, they're cheaper, and yay, the poop is smaller, but also there's only so much. When we're talking about living with, and pet dog training stuff, and crate training, and putting them up in pens, and giving them things to do, a lot of that is food puzzle, a lot of that is a topple, a lot of that is a frozen Kong, and I don't have unlimited calorie budget for that kind of thing.

If you have any kind of behavior problem and you need to use food for this, you're in sometimes a little bit of a bind, so there's that. Although I would take a well-behaved obese dog that I can take the weight off of later, but I'm just saying I can't always put her up with a frozen Kong, because now I have given her twice as much food for the day, so there's that.

I love that I can pick them up, I love that you can fly them, I love that they're forgiven more stuff. I live in a dog-friendly area, and many stores are dog friendly or dog flexible. If you can have her in your arms, you can come in real quick and make a quick purchase. Super handy. Often they're not noticed in a car. A small crate in a car isn't as seen by a passer-by who wants to insert themselves, even on a cold day, that your dog shouldn't be in a car. They're not as seen.

They are often more universally liked by the public, which is good and bad. You get a lot of, "Oh my God, look at that thing!" On the other hand, you're not walking a big, black, blockheaded dog that someone doesn't want to say hi to. So pros and cons. Maybe easier moving, renting, those kinds of things. Not that we're doing that, but for listeners, that can help.

Also I take less impact for things like feet on my body in play. I do a calculation for teaching that to a larger dog: How much feet on me do I want, and what is the experience when you put your feet on me. The bigger the dog, obviously, the harder that can be. I didn't calculate that with her. It's like, "Sure, put your feet on whatever you want to put it on. Drive into me. You can slam right into my body and I won't even notice. It's fun for you, kind of like fly ball, turn off my body." The calculation isn't as tight. I can say, "That's fine." As long as it's not a behavior problem in some other realm, it's easy to do, whereas a non-behavior problem punching of me with a large dog, I'm like, "I've got to take it off the list," even if it's fun for both of us, because it's not fun for both of us. It hurts my stomach. So letting her feel her body, letting her feel her power on me, doesn't cost me as much. I don't have to do as much thinking about it, and that's really handy.

I love being able to pick them up for a sense of … like, if I have to talk to the instructor,

which I'm often overly deferential about and disconnect from my dog around, and I'm always telling myself I have to be better about those things. Instead of having to put her in a down and train all that, I can ask her to come to me, ask her to be picked up, pick her up, and I can be feeding her right in my arms while I'm talking, and it's not as hard for me to multitask that, so that's great.

I find it easier to teach them loose leash walking, but you're not as motivated to, so you have to remind yourself that those things are important. It's maybe for some harder to do housetraining, but for me, it's the same procedure, so I don't find it harder. But for a big dog you're going to be much more motivated to do it because your mistakes are much more costly, so people tend to really get on housetraining on the bigs. You've got to get on it, but people sometimes think the smalls are harder to do. Their bladders are smaller and their timeline is smaller, so you have to get on top of it, but it's the same for that.

Lastly, some of them bark a little more than others. Again, not all of them, I know that, but some of the ones in the toy dog category. I used to have a "no barking" rule in my house. I'm not saying everybody should, but you can decide that you're going to have that, and then some dogs will challenge you on how much is achievable in that regard. But the dogs in my life so far, I have been able to say "We have a 'no barking' rule. you're going to have to keep that to a minimum." Her minimum is a different line than my other dogs' achievable minimum, and I've had to be more flexible about what I will have come under the "no barking" rule. For some people that's going to matter, for other people they don't care — cough cough Sheltie cough cough — so it's okay.

For me, I love the advantages they bring, and I think I'll always stick with having at least some dog in my house who's got not just a small stature, but a different mentality, a little bit of toy dog thought to them, because I like what it brings. You have to tamp down some of the hyper-sociality. Everybody wants to pet your dog, so you don't get the benefit of people avoiding you with a large dog, but on the other hand, you have this potential little ambassador who changes your social life a little bit. So it's all pros and cons. You're always making an adjustment on both sides. But I love having the littles and I hopefully will have one forever. I think it's been great.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: I thought about one thing. We talked a lot about agility, and I thought about a couple of things for obedience people. The heeling is so much more difficult with a little dog because of the issue with the pressure of the handler and keeping a dog in position. I used to judge obedience for many years, and I know that it's much easier as a judge to see the deviations on a little dog, a little smooth dog. It's very easy to see any deviation there. And also one of the things in terms of heeling is the handler has to be so much more precise about turns and being compact, turning around on about turns. If you step into their space at all, it's a huge, huge issue.

One other thing in obedience is any kind of examination stand is very, very difficult for a small dog, because lots of judges don't know how to examine them, and they treat them like something that's going to break, and their approach scares the dog. So I think they've got to learn things a little more differently than the big dogs. Big dogs don't have to go through that looming over that the small dogs do.

Melissa Breau: Nancy, I know we had talked in advance about the idea of something you've learned. I wasn't going to ask, but I know you have something special you wanted to share. I wanted to know if you snuck it in there or if you want to share.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: You didn't have to, but yes, I thought about this because I knew that this was a question that was going to be asked. This applies to me, and when I was training a little dog, is just believe in your dog, If you believe in your dog, and you have a vision about your dog and what you want from them, I think you can do just about anything. I think a lot of times we end up trapping ourselves and thinking, "They can't do this. Nobody else does." You just believe that they can, and expect failures, and continue to move on, and make plans, and continue to think about it. But the most important thing for me is just keep believing in them.

I think in this day and age we stop believing our dogs can do — and this applies to big dogs too — we stop believing in our dogs and then things just continue to fail. It's the same way with kids, too. If you don't believe in them, they're going to end up becoming who you think they should be. So that was my thought.

Amy Cook: That's a very nice sentiment, Nancy. I'm glad you contributed it, because it made me think just now that we have to both cut our little dogs slack and also not cut our little dogs slack. We have to hold them to a standard. They are dogs, and they can achieve all of the training all the other dogs can achieve. People cut them too much slack and don't ask them to stick to a standard.

On the other hand, you have to understand that their perspectives are different, their fears are going to be a little different or could be, and if you're not willing to cut your little dog a little more slack for the challenges of life, you're going to not be training the dog in front of you. So cut them slack, but also don't cut them so much slack. They can do stuff, and you can show them the respect that training really can give them.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: I think a lot of times we generalize ourselves and we look at how other dogs are doing out there. Maybe they can't do the things that you want to do, and that doesn't mean that your dog can't do it.

Amy Cook: Right, right.

Megan Foster: For sure. Each team, each dog, it brings a new perspective to the training process. We're constantly being reminded that just because we've done it one way for "x" amount of years, or dogs, or everyone else has been doing it this way, sometimes we have to make those adjustments, regardless of the size or the breed. Just take on the new perspective and embrace it and move forward on it.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Absolutely.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. I think that's a perfect note to end on. Thank you all for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: It was fun.

Amy Cook: Yay, it was fun.

Megan Foster: Thank you for having us, Melissa.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: What a great topic.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Thank you, guys. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in!

We'll be back next week. Don't miss it! 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!

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!