E216: 줄리 플래너리, 미셸 풀리오, 단테 카마초가 나누는 뮤지컬 프리스타일 이야기

watched her perform live with rookie. And I just, I turned to my friend and I said, I have to do that with my dog and, uh, came back to Oregon. And I was teaching a tricks class at that time. And that tricks class, I kind of twisted their arm into doing a fun with freestyle. We knew nothing about freestyle. There was nobody in the area to teach it or train it. And, uh, we just, we went into it self-taught and, um, had a lot of fun. And, and those people are still very close friends and, and freestylers today. So that's how I got involved in, in freestyle. And then I stayed with it. Um, I guess I've been doing freestyle about well, since 2000. So 20 years and, um, uh, have just, I can't imagine not, not doing it at this point. So. Awesome. Michelle, do you want to give us your background? Sure. So, uh, the current dogs in my household, uh, are deja vu English Springer Spaniel, who's coming up on 12 years of age. Ah, uh, she just retired from competition this past year. Uh, but she's still playing around with it. So we still have done, cause she just can't keep away from it. She loves it. Uh, and she's doing really well as an elderly girl. And then, uh, my current competitive boy is Saki, an Australian shepherd. And he's coming up on eight in July, which, uh, you know, it's like the pandemic pointed out that he's kind of losing his prime year in live competition because of the pandemic. Uh, and he's doing really well. Uh, so he's working on, uh, uh, more grand champ. He's already got two grand championships and he's kind of now working on more than that. Uh, and then I have a young dog, which I keep calling my puppy. So she's a pandemic puppy and she's actually going to be two years old real soon. So she's not really a puppy, but she's, uh, you know, has certainly not gotten the typical socialization that my sport dogs would have had in the past, but, uh, we're actually putting together her first routine right now. Um, so, which will be on video competition. Uh, so how did I get into freestyle? So it was kind of funny that, uh, I did competitive obedience for about 20 years. And in the 1990s, I took a break from dog sports and got involved with my horses and horse sports again. Uh, I just kind of tired of the same thing, uh, over and over again. And then on the internet, uh, it was probably around 2003 or something like that. I saw a couple videos on the internet of, and these were demos. These weren't competition things. In fact, one was Carolyn Scott and Ricky, uh, one of that video, which went viral and famous. And I just thought, God, that is really cool.

The other one was very dancey and I thought it was really cool. But in the back of my head, I said to myself, I'm not a dancer. I can't, I can't do that, you know, but it's really cool. And then about a year later, I saw Attila's famous Charlie Chaplin routine to Hooray for Hollywood. And I watched that video probably four times in a row when I saw it. And I was like really into clicker training at the time I had just learned about clicker training and I was getting to be kind of good at training tricks with it. And I said to myself, I can do that. I was so excited after seeing that routine, which I've kind of known for a skit style in my, in my freestyle. So that was kind of my beginning. And comically, I live in basically the same area as Julie, no one to teach me anything. And I was like really hungry. And I went to a workshop that Julie gave in the Portland area. And I remember afterwards going up and asking her, could you come and give me lessons or something? And she was like, oh, I just don't come up here very often. So actually it was quite a long time until I saw Julie again. It was when I discovered their club and actually went down to her area of Corvallis and watched a competition. And then I started entering. So that was kind of my beginning was coming from actually a lot of dog training in other sports and other types of work. And then just discovering this really cool sport. Yeah. What about you, Dante? Well, for dogs, I currently have five dogs. My older dog is 14. She just turned 14 yesterday. She is a Yorkshire Terrier. Happy birthday. I have a golden retriever and she is about to turn 11. We have a mixed breed that is 10. I have a border collie that turned nine in March. And our new addition is a Parson Russell Terrier. And he's just past four months old. So baby puppy. It's an actual puppy. I don't know how long am I going to keep calling him like Michelle? Maybe. But I usually do that too. Yeah. But yeah. So that's for dogs. As far as competition, like only my border collies, the one that has been trained and competed and done stuff. We have done a lot of agility competitions and done some other sort of, how would I call as just performances and shows like for general entertainment, like with tricks and races and stuff like that. My main freestyle dog, unfortunately, passed last year. He was 16 already. And his mom was the dog that I started doing agility with, sorry, freestyle with. And that was around 2003, 2003, I would say 2002, 2003. And the way that I got into this initially was because she was a puppy that had some health

issues, some injuries, and she had to do a lot of physiotherapy. And I had to teach her a bunch of stuff. She had one leg that didn't work properly. So she had to learn to walk again, use that leg. And then I started teaching her to move in different ways and walk sideways and walk backwards. And I thought, okay, this is actually looking like tricks. And even trying to jump on things or stand and do stuff. And I think my first exposure was through Carolyn Scott and her video with Rookie. And that totally blew my mind. I was new to dog training actually still. And that still blows my mind every time I watch it. Because like the most famous video, I just checked it on YouTube. It's like millions, more than 8 million views. Because it is like a good part of that. I'm sure it's for me. It's from me watching that video over and over again. But that was the goal. To me, that was freestyle. So everything that she was doing there, it's what I was trying to accomplish. You know, like teach all those tricks. And because that was all I knew as far as, you know, freestyle. Eventually, then I started looking into this. And like I found out about Mary Ray and what she was doing. Yeah, I found out about Attila. And then I, you know, got also like the VHS videotapes, like with their teaching. And that's how it started. And yeah, since here in Brazil, there's no competitions. Freestyle is not really like an official sport. There's no clubs or anything like that. We, anyone that does it has to do it on their own. Like you can, there's even workshops. I can teach a workshop and there's other people that will teach. But we have to do it on our own. And basically do it for fun. And maybe like for any other kind of entertainment for other people. But yeah, so that's how it started. And it's been going. Like it took a big chunk of my dog training life till now. I can. I'm super impressed that you all kind of got turned on to the sport with the same person. And I'll have to go track down that YouTube video that you mentioned, Dante. And share it when I share the podcast and the alumni group so folks can see what it is that you guys saw. I think a lot of the times, you know, people maybe overlook musical freestyle. So I'd love to just kind of as we kind of start our conversation, just hear a little bit about what kind of drew you to the sport. What is it that appealed to you so much about it? Michelle, do you want to start this one? Sure. What appealed to me at first when I saw these videos that were so impressive, it appealed to me about the fun. What looked like dog handler having fun.

Versus the robotic faces of doing obedience or even in agility, you're watching the same runs. So if you're in the audience sitting watching, you're watching how many dogs in a given class do the exact same run, right? What was great about this was the idea that every single person that goes in the ring is doing their own thing. You could even have the same music, which actually happened to me once at one of my first shows at Julie's Club, which I don't know if you remember this or not. But I was like appalled that the gal going in the ring before me was using my music. I thought that the music person made a mistake. I was like, oh, that's my music. And I had to go right after her. But what I learned from that was it's totally different routines, totally different. It wasn't like it was a problem. It doesn't happen that commonly at a show or an event. But the thing is, is it's yours. It really stimulated my creativity and thinking out of the box to come up with new moves or new tricks, however you want to call them. And the fact that me and my dog have created this performance, it's like we created art. It's ours. It'll always be there. To this day, when I lose dogs, and I've obviously through the years have lost a few freestyle dogs, I can still pull up their routines. Watch those routines again. And it is so emotional to me. I have tons of video from past competitive obedience. I mean, national obedience championships. Do I ever pull those up? Look at those. No. But I will look at my freestyle routine. So it's almost like you're creating a memory that has a lot more feeling to it. I love entertaining. So a lot of people in dog sports are focused on the ribbons and winning. And let me tell you, it's great. I love ribbons and I love winning and I like getting titles. My favorite thing about freestyle is entertaining the audience. That's why I like live events. So live events, when I come out of the ring and someone says, oh, you made me cry. I mean, that makes my day, you know, that I made somebody cry or I made somebody laugh or I made somebody smile. So that's what drew me to the sport is how unique it is as a sport because you're doing your own thing. What about you, Dante? It's very similar, actually. I think the first thing was the idea of fun. And for that, that first video with Caroline is very responsible because it really looks like they're having a lot of fun. The dog looks like very happy, not just excited, but happy. The music, for sure.

And I think that if I had watched freestyle for the first time and it was a song that I didn't really connect or I didn't really like, would probably have had a different impact on me. But that one just made, you know, like it made me want to dance to with them. And that was probably what made the whole all the difference. And then there is the whole like the aspect of music because I really like music. I'm not a musician, but I feel like I'm very musical and I really like the dancing aspect as well. So it kind of connects everything plus the dog training side. And of course, the fact that it's totally open, that you can do whatever you want, that also makes it so much more comfortable because you work with not only what you like, but also what your dog enjoys most doing. And that is so much more fun than trying to convince, you know, there's this one thing we have to do in this other sport. And I know it's not your favorite, but we still have like you can just skip that and do exclusively the things you want. Yes, I like that. What about you, Julie? Very, very similar. So both Dante and Michelle mentioned fun and it is a lot of fun. And the word that came to me originally was actually joy. When I think about music and dance and I love to dance and when I dance, I feel joyful. It's just it brings me joy to dance and listen to music. And one of the very first freestyle routines I saw, which was also another Carolyn Scott routine, was a pairs routine that Carolyn Scott and Deb quickly did together to the music Simply Irresistible. And they both have goldens and rookie Carolyn Scott's dog is a golden and they move very similarly. And I just remember watching them and feeling such joy watching them and seeing how they interacted with their dogs and with each other. The whole routine was just so joyful. And I think oftentimes, you know, I enjoy dancing. I don't think of myself as a dancer. I think I'm a better dancer in my head than on the dance floor. So it's kind of it's it's it's odd for me to watch my own freestyle routines because I'm always thinking, wow, I really thought I look much better than that. But I remember one of the first times that I choreographed a freestyle routine and how disappointed I was that I could not sing along. With the music while I'm doing my routine. I thought, oh, yeah, this will be great. You can sing along and you can dance and everything. But you can't. You're you're way too busy thinking about what move comes next and cueing in a timely manner. And what is your part? And where are we in the music and where are we on the floor?

And you don't have time to sing along with the music. And I remember thinking, oh, man, I don't know if I can do this if I can't sing along. But but I think it was the that feeling of joy, both watching it and then also doing it, even in the training of it. I know that a lot of us, I don't I think Michelle does this also. And Dante, maybe you do to train with music playing in the background all the time. And it just creates a sense of fun and joy and relaxation that you don't get with some of the other dog sports. Certainly, I didn't get that with obedience and I dabbled in agility and I I didn't get it there either. So I think it's that that sense of joy that I felt from from the get go. And then, you know, that fantasy of maybe one day I can look like those other freestylers out there. I love it. OK, so you all kind of showed your backgrounds and I think it's really interesting. You all kind of got into the sport about the same time. So you've all been in the sport for a while now. How has it kind of impacted your training and you as a trainer with, you know, all of the things that you do? Because most of you train kind of things in addition to freestyle. Right. Dante, do you want to start this one? I would say it had a huge impact. I thought, you know, dog training was this thing that was, you know, strict. It was in the box. We knew what to do. It was all, you know, it was all there. You just had to do these things and you were doing dog training. And because freestyle doesn't have those limitations, there's also different ways of perceiving the challenges that it brings. So when I do freestyle, I always think about how I'm going to do it as far as, you know, where am I just going to do this at home with my dog? Or am I going to present this to 10 people at a birthday party or to 12,000 people at a concert? And each situation brings a different challenge. And it's a training challenge. It's not just about teaching the dog the moves or the tricks. And it made me have to realize that the performing part has such a huge importance in the training. Right? Because everything I do as a performer has to be trained. It's not like it would be nice if it was just dancing. But everything, every single move or breath, different breath you give, like the dog sees it. And it sees it. Maybe it's a move. Maybe you're saying something. So everything has to be thought. But it still has to be fun. It still has to look like dancing. So these little things made me perceive dog training in a much more detailed way.

And everything else that I do, all the other sports, in the way, became a little bit more clearer, a little bit easier. Because I had these other challenges. And that helped me improve, I would say. A couple of different things, ways in which it's kind of changed me in my training. Up until freestyle, training was, for me anyway, training was what you did to the dog. You trained the dog. You were the controlling aspect of the training scenario. Freestyle, for me, brought the dog into a much bigger piece of it. A more of a cooperative role in a freestyle routine than there would be in obedience patterns or even agility. The training specifically because there are so many options in what to train. And because there are, as Dante said, there are no limitations in what to train. You choose what you're going to train your dog to do. That means that the dog and their preferences and their strengths and their weaknesses become a much bigger part of your training. And you have to really take those into account for freestyle. Because I believe what we are doing in freestyle routines is extremely difficult for both the dog and the handler. And if we don't take our dog's strengths and preferences into account as we're developing these routines, you aren't going to see that joy. You aren't going to see what it is that we all want to present to an audience and what we first saw in freestyle. So that was a big shift for me. I came into training right around the time when the people that I was learning from were kind of crossing over from traditional training into more positive reinforcement training. So when I first learned, I learned traditional styles of training. And as I went into freestyle is when I started to learn about clicker training and learn about more positive reinforcement training and taking the dog's emotional state into consideration as part of our training. So that was a huge shift in me. And that all happened around the same time with freestyle and learning about clicker training and all of that. The other thing that was a huge shift for me was, again, the fact that there are no limitations. And I really had a very narrow view when I first started learning about training. Tricks were like the most creative thing. And that was actually one of the reasons I think I became more involved in training and a professional trainer was I was so enamored with some of the trick behaviors that you could do. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know a dog could do something like that. And so for me at that point, it was almost like I never would have thought to even train that.

I never even thought I would know how to train something like that. I wouldn't have even imagined a dog could do something like that. And so that opened up just a huge world of training to me. And that world included not only the dog and what they're capable of, but all of the different methods. And my whole my learning journey really started when I became involved with freestyle because there are no limitations. And so with that came greater responsibility to learn about methods that are going to be dog friendly, methods that are going to be effective and efficient and kind and get the results that we we are striving for in a freestyle routine. So so so that was a huge shift for me in in my training perspective, how I perceived training, what I thought training was and how I practice and applied it. Michelle, how does how's it kind of impact your training? I would agree with with everything that Dante and Julia said very similar. And the fact that the longer I did freestyle within a few years of doing freestyle, I started realizing that I need to pay more attention to the opinion of my dog when I choreograph. In other words, I routinely now when I choreograph a sequence, I run it by my dog before I say, yeah, this is going to work. Now, I know that sounds funny, but it basically means I'm just walking through a sequence with food and I'm just seeing how they like the sequence. I just did that this morning with Saki. We've got a new championship level routine we're putting together and we have this sequence. I'm trying to figure out what the final version is. And I just ran through a couple options and he picked the one that he wanted. And when you know you're going to perform a routine many times, believe me, you want to pick the best option for that individual dog because you know that you're not going to see that behavior or that chain break down after two or three performances because the dog's knowing it's coming and he's not all that crazy about that sequence, etc. So it impacted me as a trainer to be more of a 50-50 proposition between me and the dog. I still have the responsibility to come up with the ideas and to train the behaviors, but the dog can really give me information about how they feel about the pieces we're doing. So I think it made me in my other types of training, which I trained guide dogs and taught other people how to train guide dogs for 42 years until I just retired recently. And believe me, that's a really serious type of training, right? So you're training dogs to save people's lives. You know, they're really taking care of people.

But it actually rolled over into that training because it's actually the same thing. It's making sure that the way you train behaviors, even if they're behaviors you have to train, that they're required, you find a way to train them that makes the dog feel as happy and as joyful and as they love that behavior. You figure out a way to make your training make each behavior as good as it can be. So I'm better at that now than I was, you know, 10 years ago, better than five years ago. I'm always looking at my partner and what they're telling me about the training. And I'm shifting quicker until it has to be some stupid thing that I finally go, I don't think he likes this. So I'm better now at noticing things immediately when things are just, okay, let me look at there's something there. I need to pull that behavior out and make it a much more fun behavior before I try to put it with the other behavior as an example. And sometimes it's really obvious and sometimes it's really subtle. I mean, there are times that I'll go through and I'll think, okay, she's just not used to combining this sequence or she's not fluent at this behavior. And that's why she's stalling out or she's not responding to the cue as quickly as I would like. And sometimes it's really obvious. It's like, no, I'm sorry, I'm not doing that. A dead stop, not moving. And just recently, matter of fact, I had to change a sequence because, and I went through all of the, I think as trainers, we tend to go through like, okay, is there not a high enough reward history? Or is not a strong enough reward history? Is she not feeling well today? Is my transition into that move not effective? And so you, sometimes you try to tweak all these other little things first because you really, really want to include that move in that routine. Damn it. And then finally, you know, they're just like, no, we need to change this. And, and you do. And it's really amazing to me, this happens every time, because I, I, like Michelle, I want to make sure that the routine is easy for the dogs to perform. It's a very hard sport. And we want this to be easy and enjoy, and we want them to enjoy performing these sequences and these behaviors. But at the same time, you know, when you have a vision in your head of your choreography and you really want it to work this way, sometimes we're pretty thick in the head and try all of these other things first. Well, I'll raise the value of the reward. I'll, I'll add in this other behavior beforehand. I'll slow down the speed of the music.

Like, we'll do all these things first, just to try and get that silly behavior in there. And then you change it. And it's like, oh God, that is so, such a better choice for that sequence. You know, oftentimes the dog is the one that has a much better idea than we ever could. So, but it still is, I have to keep reminding myself, you know, sometimes the dog is right. Usually the dog is right. Let's just go with that this time. So, yeah. Okay. So I think the kind of the basic concept of musical freestyle is in Lit Off, right? The idea of dancing with your dog. Most people can kind of picture what that looks like. They've probably seen some of the videos that have like surfaced on Facebook over the years. But I want to kind of go a little bit deeper than that. So I'd love if you could each kind of share what the hardest part of putting together a successful routine and preparing your dog to kind of perform in the sport is for you. Dante, do you mind starting this one? There's different elements. I think for some dogs, certain things are more difficult than for others. So it's not, I will go with the dog's strengths. So some dogs will have, you know, more difficulty with generalizing stuff or some dogs, depending on the kind of move that you're trying to, or how much, I don't know, how active the move is or how slow and thoughtful it has to be. Like it's harder or easier for the dog. So I think adapting to that is the one part. But then comes what I believe is hard for anyone doing freestyle is understanding how to maintain that quality of behavior, of performance, of, you know, emotional response from the dog throughout the whole routine. You know, and then what I will do, you know, try to understand how I can combine the order of things to try to get, you know, that flow where the dog is, you know, like constantly feeling reinforced throughout the whole thing. I think that's probably the second part. Once I understand the strength of the dog, it would be, you know, being able to, no matter how long that routine is going to be, to be able to get that flow of behavior and attitude of the dog to be constant throughout the whole thing. I totally agree with what Dante said. I think freestyle, as fun and exciting as it can be for both the dog and the handler, it is a very difficult sport. And so maintaining that quality as you have reduced tangible rewards can be difficult. I think in addition to that, something that I struggle with is taking the vision that's in my head and creating it in a way that that's what the audience sees.

What is in my head doesn't always translate into what's on the floor and what we actually put out there. And as much as for me, as much as I strive for that, I feel, I always feel like I left something out. Like there wasn't, like I, I wanted to portray something and I didn't quite get there yet. And so for me, a lot of my routines, I'm always striving to let, let the audience in kind of on a little secret on that little bit of magic that I feel when I'm doing freestyle. And I think that's really, really difficult to take our vision and have it come to fruition for an audience. But in terms of the training and putting it together, absolutely. I think maintaining the dog's attitude and animation and joy as he works through these behaviors and sequences for sometimes up to three and four minutes. 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 behaviors in a routine can be really, really difficult. I think I find that to be challenging. And I find making sure that the vision that's in my head is what I'm actually putting out for an audience. It is what's actually happening. Michelle? I'm going to say ditto to what was already said. I'll just add that I think the hardest part, but I don't want the word hardest to mean that I don't enjoy this part because I'm kind of doing this currently. And when I'm putting together a routine, I find it difficult and challenging to make those decisions on what is going to go where and what's important to keep to keep that feeling I want to show the audience. So like what Julie's talking about, it's like you have a vision. So before I start putting any of these behaviors together, I already have a vision of what I want to do, right? It's not real specific, though, but it's a feeling. It's an emotion that I want to portray to the audience. And so the hard part to me is as I'm putting the pieces together, am I actually giving that vision or am I becoming too hung up on what behaviors I'm sticking in, right? The important piece is what the audience is going to feel. What are they going to see and what are they going to feel? So that's kind of the challenge to me. And I think that things change a little when you're in the lower levels of freestyle. I don't want anyone hearing us talk to get scared away from the sport because at the lower levels, so for instance, my puppy, my puppy, two-year-old puppy. But anyway, my puppy's first routine is coming together right now, too. And I find it comically easy because the time is so short, right? So she's only going to be working for a minute and a half. Now, for her, that'll be a long time without reinforcement.

But the fact is I'm having trouble just going, oh, darn it, I wanted to put that behavior in and I don't have time to put it in, right? So I'm just much more relaxed about her routine because all I want to portray is just a little cuteness. And I don't have to worry about technical difficulty, you know, and all that, that we want people to notice. And if it's competition, you're wanting to get points for the difficulty in how many things you did. I don't even think about that at the lower levels. I just literally put together things they do well and they have fun. But what's true is it gets harder as you get at the higher divisions, you know. Or if you're going to give a performance like Dante has in front of a huge audience for entertainment only, there's a lot of pressure there to entertain, right? So you have to put together movements that are going to have a wow factor to them or people are impressed. Otherwise, it looks like you're just healing your dog around a lot and every once in a while he spins and he goes through your legs. And if you do that for four or five minutes, that gets really old to watch, you know. So it gets harder the higher you move up in the division. So I want people listening to not kind of be afraid of the sport when we do. Here we are talking about, God, that's really hard. It's hard at the higher levels when you're putting together a three, four-minute routine. It does become like a lot harder of a sport. It still is so gratifying at the end when you come up with this thing that is yours and your dog's and you go in there and you have your audience react with comments like, wow, you just made me laugh so hard when you did that. That was so cute. You know, it makes the whole thing worth all that effort because, you know, that to me is what the sport did for me when I first saw it. Made me laugh, made me smile, made me feel fun. You know, that's what I'm trying to do. So it does become harder the more advanced level that you're in. Well, I think that's true with any sport that you're serious about or serious competing in or the serious top-level competitors. It gets harder the higher up in the levels you go. However, I think that's tempered with all of the preparation that you do at the lower levels. So, yes, if somebody came in now and wanted to do a routine with their dog that us three, that Michelle or Dante or I might put out with our dogs, yeah, you're going to have a really hard time doing that routine because you don't have the foundation underneath it that we all started with, with our dogs at the lower levels.

So, and again, even though you have that foundation, the higher up you go, it adds difficulty to the task for the handler or for the dog. But as Michelle said, I think I find I have had the most satisfaction and gratification and joy from some of the routines that I have put together at the higher levels. And they actually come together. They all come together and they just feel right. And so that difficulty, the challenge that we have, putting it all together and practicing it and training it and just making it just so, there's a reason we stick with it. And that reason is that feeling you get when it all comes together. And that's what makes it worthwhile. And so, like Michelle said, it's, yeah, it's challenging and it's hard, but, you know, what isn't? What isn't that is at that level? So, yeah, I think new people coming in, there's a lot of support and a lot of foundation they can work on and they can build their strengths to get to these higher levels if they do it thoughtfully and methodically. But if you just go out and try and put together some of these higher level routines, which, by the way, I do see some beginners try to do. And I think they forget that it's not necessary to do that. They don't need to put out performances that champion freestylers put out. They need to put out level appropriate work for them and their dogs. And if you do that and you work up through the levels, then it's just it's just the next step. So you kind of mentioned in there, I was going to ask about the typical length of a routine. I know Michelle mentioned kind of a 90 seconds, I think you said, for kind of the earlier levels. And then Julie mentioned, you know, working for three to four minutes. How do you kind of work up to that without reinforcement? How do you approach training that with your dog? Very slowly. So, yeah, you in in freestyle, depending on what organization you're competing under, you could be in the ring for as little as a minute to over four minutes. And I think the way I look at this is early on in training, when I when I'm training my dog foundation skills, not even freestyle behaviors, but just foundation skills. I want my dogs to start to understand the concept of duration, that there are going to be times when you are going to work a little longer before you get reinforced. And that starts very early. That starts with when you're teaching a sit. It's not you sit and then you get rewarded right away. You might the first few, but fairly early in training. I want to instill in my dogs the concept of duration. Yes, you sat. That's beautiful.

Now you're going to sit for just a few seconds and then you get rewarded and then you're going to sit for a little longer and then you give. And this concept of waiting for release or a next cue or reward. And so I think that. That concept of duration is huge in helping dogs learn about working longer for less reinforcement. If they have an early understanding of that, I think it's easier to build on. As positive reinforcement trainers, we are great at rewarding. We love to reward our dogs and we reward our dogs a lot. And we reward on a one to one ratio for a very long time. And I think for many of us, it's hard to step out of that one to one ratio. We want to reward. We want to reward frequently. We want to get that that strong history of reward embedded. We want to build that bank account. But I think if we don't think about early on, how are we going to teach our dogs to work in the performance arena for that long, for that many behaviors? If we don't think about that early on, that gets very, very difficult. And that's when we start to see flat dogs in the ring after the third or fourth behavior, because they've never been taught how to do that. And so that first step for me is teaching a concept of duration with simple behaviors. Other tools and within the teaching, the concept of duration is ping ponging, going easy, hard, easy, hard, but always building up in that duration. Interval training where you're gradually increasing the time, making sure that if you are asking for more work, that you are giving more pay. I think oftentimes handlers have a tendency to give the exact amount and quality and duration of reinforcement for seven behaviors in a row as they did for one behavior. And so I think we need to up the ante for our dogs when they are working longer, harder, more behaviors in a row, then we need to make sure that we are paying equal or greater value in reinforcement. And then I know a lot of us freestylers use backchaining to effectively turn a sequence of behaviors into a single behavior that is then reinforced at the end. And while we don't backchain whole behaviors, we can certainly backchain sections of behaviors, maybe some of the more difficult sequences of behaviors, so that once the dog starts that sequence, they can anticipate where it's going and that there is going to be reinforcement at the end of that sequence. And if there's not reinforcement, then there is the start of a new sequence that signifies reinforcement at the end. So those are some of the tools that I use.

But I think one of the, personally, I think most important early on in training is that as positive reinforcement trainers, we understand that reinforcement is important. Reinforcement drives behaviors. That's what's going to build strength in these behaviors. That's what's going to create a positive association in our dogs in these behaviors. But I think sometimes we aren't thoughtful about teaching the dog the concept of duration early on. And there's an expectation in our dogs to be reinforced very frequently. And then we don't prepare them for what will inevitably happen when you step into the ring. And you are asking for more behaviors in very difficult setting. And you're removing all your reinforcement. That's just not fair to the dog, I don't think. I just don't think that's fair to the dog. And I don't think we start early enough in the training process teaching them about that concept. Yeah, the problem with what Julie was just talking about is that when people haven't prepared their dogs for cues and working longer durations, when they get to an event, or even if you're just doing a video, there are all sorts of environmental cues happening that are a little different than your normal training. And all of a sudden, they're not getting reinforced the way they're expecting they should. You actually are poisoning that environment. You're actually telling the dog that when I go in these two ring gates, there's no food. So you're actually hurting the dog for future performance because you have created a very clear cue that things are going to be different than they usually are. So early on, as soon as I have a behavior happening on a dog, I'm going to cue it several times in a row and then give extra reinforcement for that. That's a subtle way of introducing a bit of duration work. The other thing I do, and I'm doing this with my new puppy, is I'm using back chaining to introduce the concept of duration because it gives them focus on going somewhere. So instead of, I do a lot of back chaining, which a lot of people listening to this are going to go, oh God, here she goes on back chaining. But I also use it just as an exercise for a young dog because I think it's a great way to introduce duration because when I'm introducing the concept of taking the next cue to get to that other behavior. And now we're going to add another one. Take the cue, take the cue, take the cue. There's that behavior again. And that the payoff becomes bigger as we add behavior.

So if I take a young dog and I do a four, five behavior back chain exercise, by the time I have 10 minutes of training done, I have a dog that wants to get to the end. And they've learned two things along the way. They've learned I can take cue after cue after cue with joy because I can't wait to get to that behavior. They've learned that if they try to skip a behavior to get to the final behavior, it doesn't work. We have to start over again. So they learn that they have to listen to me when things get exciting and they can't wait to get to that behavior, the one that's getting awarded. So it's a great exercise, not putting together a sequence for a routine, just as an exercise for duration of taking a cue, taking a cue, taking a cue. I prefer actually introducing that to a young dog that way before I start clocking myself and saying, okay, today I'm going to work Keiko for 30 seconds solid and then we're going to have a big party. Right? So before I do that, I want her already used to the concept of taking the cue, taking the cue, excited about the next cue. So the cues start becoming something real exciting to hear because it means they're getting someplace. So I think it's one of the hardest parts of any performance sport is teaching the dog the desire to get to the end and enjoy the journey. So whether it's a one minute performance or a four minute performance, you have a dog that once you enter the ring, they are jazzed the whole time because they know where they're going. And they're excited that they are going to get a jackpot somewhere at the end. But I also think maintenance, and Dante mentioned this earlier, is really challenging because when a dog knows something, people have a tendency to get greedy. And they don't really think they need to apply reinforcement. And if you want that dog to stay joyful, excited, when you're doing the same thing again and again, it's really important to have a process of noticing the areas that you need to add more reinforcement during training. And yet not create a pattern to where the dog will actually have this hesitation at that point in the performance, if that makes sense. So if I pick, oh, he really has a hard time doing the rollover. So I'm going to reward him every time he rolls over. But you're going to get to the performance and you have created a little hiccup there. So rollover and there's a hiccup kind of going, where's my reward? So we have to do it variably while we maintain their belief system that it could happen at any time. Cheese could fall out of the sky, right?

But we can't create the expectation that it should fall out of the sky. And that's what happens to people who don't prepare the dog for duration performance. And they go in the ring and it's really sad to watch. But when you see someone new in the sport or even in other sports, you can tell they're new. And the dog is real enthusiastic at the start. And as they go through their routine, whether it's obedience or freestyle or whatever, you kind of see the dog looking just a bit like baffled. And sometimes they actually get through the whole thing and the dog does okay. Guess what happens day two of an event? Dog goes in there and goes flat. Usually ends up staring at the handler like, I don't get it. Or they try to leave the ring. All of a sudden, everyone's, oh, the stress of the ring. Well, the ring didn't seem to stress him yesterday. It seems to be the fact that you've created an expectation in cues. Meaning that I took a cue. Gosh darn, I should be getting my cookie really quickly. So the preparation is what is lacking in a lot of teams that are having trouble in those competition sports. As long as your dog is comfortable in the environment, they'll play with you in the environment. You can go right in that environment and play tug of war or whatever you normally do. Then non-performance doesn't have to do with that environment. It has to do with the lack of preparation to work for an extended period of time. That said, I don't compete every weekend. So if I was going to campaign a freestyle dog and every weekend I was going to an event, I'd probably have a hard time at an upper level. That's hard stuff. So I have to admit that in between events, which is several months, I'm working on that whole maintenance thing to keep everything up. And people who campaign their dogs, like competitive obedience, you know, every weekend they're in an obedience trial. Hey, I have to give them my hats off to you. Because all week long, you're trying to get the maintenance work in so that at that next weekend, you've got a joyful dog when they perform. I would agree with what Julie and Michelle said. I believe that, you know, what Michelle is saying, I do think that dogs feel like they've been lied to because you've been telling them one story all along and then suddenly it changes. And obviously it changes when all of this around changes. So, okay, it must be this environment or the way you're breathing or dressed up or whatever it is or what people are saying. Anyways, so yes, that has to be thought way before you think of competing.

I do think that starting, just like Julie said, creating duration, I think it's also a little bit of resilience in a way. Because the same way, what I try to do is as I start with a dog, with a very basic, you know, luring puppy thing, you know, like you lure it to sit or to down or to spin or anything like that. As a trainer that wants to see perfection, I would reward every single, you know, move, every single thing that the dog does. But if I think that I want this dog to understand that concept very early, I would not worry so much about how it's doing things. But I would prefer to get that dog to, once it's been rewarded, to sit, to down, to spin, to understand that it will have to maybe do it two times or two different moves. And then it gets that reward and very early in the training. So that it's never really, you're never really lying. The rules have been the same all along, you know, like it's not always, but it's always fun. You're not always getting food for everything to do, but it's always fun that there's always a chance that things are coming and will come eventually, right? Now, if you think about the, like a routine, and I'm thinking about, you know, a dog that is, you know, I'm thinking of preparing a routine. What I try to do is, and then I've been influenced by other sports thinking of that, because since I've done a lot of agility, I always thought about the chain of agility and how dogs get excited about doing that. And they're not expecting anything in the middle, or even when they end, a lot of them are thinking, okay, let's do this again, because this was so much fun. So I will have some basic behaviors. And when I say basic, it's not that they're necessarily easy, but they're important for me. And they're very likely to be used in many types of routines. And I will make them and I will teach them in a way that it's so strong and it's so reinforcing that they are part of a chain of reinforcement. Right? So that, and that is very important. And that's the good thing about freestyle. If the behavior is not there yet, I don't have to use it. So I just skip it. I just keep using the ones that I know my dog's going to feel reinforced. In the beginning, I didn't see it like that, but I soon realized that I needed those behaviors in there to get that dog to continue to feel that each of those opportunities, each of those moves was an opportunity. Then I would use the ones that I knew I had that were, you know, very reinforcing for the dog. Today, I think, you know, each one of these moves that I intend to teach the dog,

I work really hard to make so that the dog, you know, if it was an obstacle, it would see and would say, I want to do this. Let's do this. And just because it's, you know, it's got such a huge history. And if I try to, when I start putting things together, I do use a lot of back chaining too, just the same way Michelle was saying, you know, not as thinking of the routine itself, but in the training. So, and each training, it's a different chain. It's just a behavior that tells the dog, okay, this is what's going to be reinforced at this point, right after this move. And then each day I will do, it could be a different move that will be the reinforcing one. And then I just add stuff before and the dog learns to understand that, okay, we just keep doing, keep going. And, you know, it's just like, you know, learning in general, right? The science of learning, the next behavior just becomes a cue to the next one and it's reinforcing in itself and all of that. So, yeah, it's basically, you know, that. So, just a follow-up question there. So, you were talking about kind of having behaviors that the dog finds reinforcing. Are those different? Because you were talking earlier about how different dogs enjoy different things, right? And you have to learn your dog strengths and weaknesses. So, are the behaviors that are going to be those core behaviors different from dog to dog? Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, that also has to do with us because the better you get at teaching something, the better you get at making the dog love it, right? So, it's likely that a lot of them will be similar. But there will be things that, you know, that dog in particular, because of the way it moves, we'll prefer to do. And then we'll, you know, work more with that. I'd like to add just one more thing on this topic about preparing the dog for performing, which we didn't mention. And if we train a majority of the time looking very unlike the way we're going to look in performance, that's a problem. So, the first thing I'm going to bring up is holding reinforcement. So, if I've got a tug tory around my neck or I'm holding food in my hand or I've got my bait bag right in front like a kangaroo pouch, like saying, it's here and it's available, right? If I train too long like that and I think the dog is going to go into the ring and I don't look like that now and he's going to perform the same way, it's not going to happen. And, unfortunately, our human instinct is we feel secure holding on to that food and holding on to the tug toy and the ball or whatever we're doing.

One of the first things that I am so observant when I'm training something with a lure, when I do a lot of lure training to start behaviors, I, in the first or second session, I've got my light bulb going on. Get rid of the food in your hand and just use a gesture. Stop making your gesture look like a claw. Make your hand look like choreography. So, my brain goes very quickly to as a behavior progresses, I already am progressing to how am I going to physically appear in performance. It could be that I just want to give no information, right? So, that just means when I'm training, I now want my hands passive. I want to be upright. I don't want to be bent over. I don't want to give information so that I know that I'm actually teaching them a goal cue. Let's say it's a verbal cue. It could have a signal to it, too. But I want to have a signal that could be used in competition, if that makes sense. So, a spin can be, you know, a really cool, that's plenty of information. Dogs love visual information. But if I keep doing this, turning around in a circle with my hand to get a spin for very long, that's going to be hard to get rid of. And even though that would be allowed at the lower levels, I don't want to take my young dog in the ring, having that much work on them, and know that I can stir the pot to get a spin. So, it's just something I always want to point out to people that are having trouble, is that what are you doing with your reinforcement? What do you look like? If you're always thinking, I should start looking the way I'm going to look in performance, or at least give no information. And reinforcement and the way it's held or carried on your body, or even located right next to where you're training. If you have a bucket of treats three feet away, they're not going to be there in the competition. So, just thinking about that is an important piece of getting a dog ready for performance. All right. So, what about kind of the opposite end? So, we've been talking about kind of in the ring, right? When you're ready to compete or ready to perform a routine. What about when you're just starting a new routine, right? So, how do you approach that? How do you start to think about the music, the choreography, the variety of tricks? How do you make some of those decisions, you personally? So, Michelle, I know you're working on this right now. So, why don't you start us off? I would say that most of the time, 99% of the time, my vision begins with music. So, it's a piece of music that either draws me due to the emotional impact that may be dramatic,

or fun, or just the kind of song that when people hear it, they smile, right? So, I'm pretty commonly used music that is recognized by the audience. And the reason I do that is not only my own enjoyment of that particular music, it's also the fact that I know the audience when they recognize it. It's like people wanting to sing along to a song that they know. So, I think they can enjoy the performance when they actually know the music. That said, I've picked music that people had never heard before. Usually, when I do that, it's some really dramatic piece that I just think is beautiful, and nobody could not listen to it and go, whoa, that's really cool music. So, I have done a few routines where I started with the concept, and I had a vision of what I wanted this performance to be. And then, as I'm like thinking about the vision, I go, oh, God, I can't even imagine what the background music to this is going to be. And I've had to actually work pretty hard at searching for the right music to be in the background. So, I'll give you an example. So, Saki did his championship routine to a skit where I played a blind woman, and he was a dog. And during the routine, we come together, and he becomes my guide dog. So, it was an emotional piece for me. I had just retired from Guide Dogs for the Blind, and I thought, I'm really good with a mobility cane, by the way, and I can look rather blind. I know blind movements. And I thought, I really want this to be an emotional routine. I want this to be, but I don't want to make people cry. You know, I just want it. But I wanted it to be a feel-good routine. And I did not pick the music for a while. I was kind of like figuring out some of the sequences and some really cool behaviors. I was already training for it. I was training Saki how to put the harness on his butt, like I'd get it on the wrong end of his body. And he walks me backwards. And I'm, so that was the comical little piece of the routine that kind of got it lighthearted. It took me a while to come to something that was really a nice, feel-good song, but it had that bit of emotional to it. And I ended up picking By Is, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. So when people saw the routine, they thought I picked the music first because it was like a story, like this blind girl happens somewhere over the rainbow. She finds this guide dog. I didn't. I actually went through a lot of versions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow to decide which one to use because some of them were really too dramatic for what I wanted. And so that said, you can do it either way, right? My tendency, though, is to go with music first.

And the reason is I listen to music all the time. And when I have a piece of music that evokes emotion in me, I start visualizing right away about how that could be a routine. Ooh, ooh, I could do a routine to this. That's usually how I start. And then I just play with the music, meaning I'm playing the music, just training my dog. And that music is playing over and over. And I'm just kind of listening to it and getting an idea of what we can do to the music. And that's usually how I get my start. Dante, what about you? It's the same, actually. It's the music. To me, it's always the music first. I've tried the other way, but it never works. I always start. I get all these ideas in my head about things I'm going to get the dog to do. But then it just dies down. It doesn't, because there is no emotion attached to it yet. So it doesn't really go very far. But with the music, it's the same. Like I hear a song. And if in any way that song touches me emotionally, makes me happy or emotional, whatever it is, then I tend to then visualize doing stuff with the dog. Then the second part, because that doesn't always work, because depending on the dog that I have, that song, doesn't matter how much I love it, it's not really going to work with that one dog. Because of the way it moves and the things that I know we can do together, it's not going to work. So it has to also fit the dog, right? So yeah, but it usually starts with the song. I did work a lot, many years, where I didn't get to pick songs. I had to perform to songs that were picked by a producer based on the theme of the year. So that was, I had like, luckily, and I guess if that song is played over and over and over and over, you kind of learn and you think so much about what you're going to do in it. You learn to enjoy, at least I did. So I ended up liking the song and, you know, knowing things like knowing to anticipate the moments and then putting together a routine that way. But if I have to start on my own, then I will always choose the song first. I think that's really interesting. So you had somebody else picking the music for you and you did some of the performances? Yes. So they have, we had like annual themes. So there was one thing, one year was a country theme and then as a hip hop theme. And then, you know, and even throughout the year, sometimes we would change the song throughout the year. So two or three different songs, but there are songs that are like so stuck in my head listening to it every time I hear it. It's like, oh, you know, but anyways, it's yeah, I had to perform.

And I learned as well to sometimes perform exactly the same thing, but just following a different flow, putting things in different, like waiting a little longer, doing this. And the good thing about freestyle is that you can do that and nobody knows if it's a little bit more or if you ask for an extra spin, like it doesn't really matter. Nobody knows. And if the dog and that's another part that is important when I was saying about the dog enjoying it. So it doesn't really matter if you put one extra move there, the dog is okay. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't make that much difference. But I did enjoy also the fact that I could change, like always change a little bit. I often had to perform two or three times a day. So it was hard to keep the dog doing exactly the same thing. So we would change it up a little bit. And that way we kept, you know, things always exciting. But I don't know how much the dogs actually learned the music. That's like always something I always would like to know because somehow they must learn. Because it's always you repeat it so many times. So there must be some sort of cue for them as well. I always try to make sure that the only cues that are really relevant are mine and everything else around will keep changing. Pretty much the same. There's a saying amongst freestylers that once you start in freestyle, you never listen to music the same way again. Because you're always visualizing what is the dog doing there? What can I be doing there? What are the, what sequences go well here? It just happens. You hear music. I don't know about you guys. But with me, if I hear music right away, I picture dog behaviors or a freestyle routine. So you don't listen to music the same way once you become involved in freestyle. So the music is a huge inspiration and often the starting point for me. But I think within that, even as Dante said, the dog's personality, their physicality, how they move is really important too. For me, when I'm working with my young dogs, like right now, even though you have lots of music to choose from, because she's a young dog, because she's really fun and happy. And so I'm drawn for her, her first routines, fun, happy pieces of music. But that has to do with her and her personality. And what I, again, the vision I have of what I want to portray to an audience about my dog, that narrows my music choices quite a bit. And so I would start just listening to those types of music for her.

I think, too, that, so for example, right, the last several years, I've really been interested in doing more heel work to music type routines rather than really trick laden routines. So things, pieces of music that maybe have a change of pace or have a certain flow or rhythm to them. And certainly a rhythm that, that suits my and my dog's comfort in our movement as well. So I take that into account into my, into my music choices. Sometimes it might be a prop or a costume. I might see a costume in a thrift store and I think, wow, that, that is like really cool. What type of genre could I be looking at in terms of music that I could wear that costume to? And then within that genre, what are the pieces of music that are going to fit my dog's style of movement and musicality and my dog's personality and what I might want to portray? So I think there are a lot of places that you can find inspiration for your routines. The, the part that brings it all together though, it solidifies it is your choice of music though. So I think as freestylers, we spend a lot of time making, listening to music, making those choices. And it doesn't always stick. You know, we think we've got it. We think we've got the perfect piece and you start working with it. And then all of a sudden you're like, yeah, no, that's not it at all. So then you, then you go back to the, to the drawing board on that again. But yeah, I think there are a lot of places that you can find, find inspiration. I think one thing that is important, a couple of things is that you, you do have to take the dog into account in your choices of music. You can create a lot of, you can create a routine to a lot of different pieces of music, but I have seen routines. The music is lovely. The costuming is great. The moves are wonderful. The choreography looks good, but it just did not fit that dog and handler team and the way they moved throughout the ring. Um, video is your friend. If you find pieces of music that you think you will enjoy, then video, video yourself and your dog, just moving naturally, doing some behaviors you enjoy. What does it look like? I think people are surprised when they think a piece of music is going to work really, really well for them. And then they look at how they and their dog are moving to it and it's not going to, not going to work at all. Uh, the other thing, something Dante said too, is that you have to be willing to listen to this piece of music over and over and over and over and over again.

I mean, thousands of times, literally, not only when you're training your dog, but freestylers spend a lot of time working on their own part without their dog ever being in the room. Uh, and so make sure it's something you like that you enjoy. Um, and for me, I want it to fit the personality of my dog, the way my dog moves, what my comfort level of movement. Um, and yeah, yeah, that's, I think music without being inspired by the music, you could be inspired by a lot of things, your costume and your prop. But if you're not also inspired by the music, uh, I, it will be a little bit more difficult. All right. So we've talked about music and we've talked about getting started and we've talked about the ring. Um, we have not actually spent a lot of time talking about the actual moves or the tricks or specific bits and pieces. So I want to go there next. Um, when, do each of you have like a favorite routine or a favorite trick or a favorite dance move that you've done or that you do with your dog? And can you kind of talk us through it, describe it for us? Dante? Favorite routine or trick? Um, I think from when I started and as I mentioned, like watching Carolyn videos and then, uh, all the, the first contact that I had, um, the most obvious. And the one that, and that's one thing we, we, like, we didn't mention in the beginning, but one of the things that was really, uh, exciting about watching freestyle was to try to figure out how they did that. How, how did they teach that? How did they get the dog to do that and move in that way? So that was, that part already was like, because, you know, when you're by yourself and you keep, you know, having all these ideas and trying all these crazy things. And then you eventually realize it was much simpler. You know, there's the right way to teach that. But it was, uh, definitely my, my first one was just backing up, turning around and coming back and backing up through your legs. That was like, to me was absurd. The first time I saw it, because all I knew was, you know, basic obedience and maybe some agility. When, when, when you see that and you see your dog, a dog walking towards you backwards, it was like, it was too much for my head. Right. So of course, that was the first thing I wanted to teach. So I worked really hard on doing that. And it was really satisfying to me when I, you know, when we reached that and even more, because my dogs love that.

And I don't know why, if it's the move where it's just because I was teaching it so much and reinforcing it so much, but that was definitely the one thing that, um, that stuck for me at the one trick. And then once I got that, I really enjoyed having, uh, the variations of that. So continuation of that, of moving backwards towards and keep going and doing things, uh, especially, um, not looking at me. Those I find quite challenging, but very, you know, exciting. So that's probably the things that I, I, I like the most, even when I'm, you know, playing with my guys here, doing some fitness stuff, I always prefer the fitness stuff where the dog's looking away and still has to keep position and do all this stuff. So I guess, yeah. I love that. Julie. Yeah. I don't know if I actually have a favorite trick. There are many tricks that I've seen or moves that I've seen or that I've trained that I really enjoy and that I love. Um, I agree with Dante, one of the first, um, behaviors that I saw in one of our local competitions. Uh, when we first started, there wasn't like the internet and all the YouTube videos that you could see. And so when you saw something in, in your little local competition that was like, Oh, wow. Uh, and it was very similar to what Dante said. And, um, she had her little Sheltie behind her. She was walking forward. The Sheltie was behind her facing away from her. So they were butt to butt, bum to bum. And, uh, the Sheltie was walking backwards toward the handler walking forward. So they're, they're back to back and the dog is walking backwards and the handler's walking forward. Michelle, I think you did that with Listo in your, in your, uh, TV medley routine. Yep. Yep. Didn't you do that with him in there? Yeah. So I, I thought that was a, a very fun, cool move. Um, I, the, the moves that I really enjoy are the ones that make it appear as if the dog is dancing and performing on their own without cueing or instruction from the handler. So, um, for example, I don't, I don't know if you're familiar with Sandra Roth and her dog, Lizzie, who did a beautiful ballet routine. And it starts with the dog at a distance, um, with the dog's back to the handler. And the whole routine is, it's just beautiful, impeccable, but it really creates the illusion of the dog as dance partner and not as, um, as being cued to perform. Does that make sense? Those are the types of moves and routines that I really enjoy, um, where it appears as if the dog is, is an integral part of the performance and they are making these choices on their own of what to do.

And the handler is not cuing them, um, in any way. Um, of course you never forget your first, right? So, so Carolyn Scott, of course, had, uh, a move similar to that turn back through. Um, and I remember thinking, wow, that that's pretty amazing. So, so the same as Dante seeing that move for the first time was like, how, how did she do that? I've got to do that with my dog. So, so yeah, those are the types I, I really enjoy. What about you, Michelle? Uh, yeah, on the, on the Carolyn Scott turn back through, I remember seeing that going, how the heck did she do that? And of course now that is like almost a standard move, uh, in freestyle, freestyle world. Uh, my personal favorites, I think I've kind of become, uh, a pose fanatic. Uh, so I like teaching poses that are rather unique and can add drama or comedy. Uh, to a moment. So they aren't sudden quick things that are over with. They, they have duration to them. And I think the first, the first one that I trained with Listo was an arabesque. So he's standing on all fours and then he raises a hind leg and extends it out behind him as like a ballerina or something might do straightening the hind legs. So the hind legs horizontal to the ground. And so when I trained that, that was like the biggest, coolest thing that I got done. And I never thought it was going to happen. I was working on it for months and I thought, this is, this just isn't going to happen. But then he, he, the light bulb went on and, uh, he got it. And, and since then I've trained two other dogs to do that move. So it's one of my favorite moves. It's actually physically hard because it has to be a very well balanced dog to be able to extend and balance on three feet. The other, uh, pose that is one of my favorites is a head back pose, which my first springer Cabo, uh, I captured that he naturally did it, uh, stretching. And then my next springer Deja, uh, who's still with us. Uh, she also did it naturally and I captured it. And then I had people, uh, challenge me say, well, don't you think it's about time you actually taught a dog to do it? So I did train my Aussie Saki, my Aussie Saki to do that. And he does it really well. Uh, so I enjoy that. Uh, it, there are challenges to poses very much so because to get a nice extremity to the pose. So it really, the audience, it's a wow factor. It's really cool. Um, so the, there's a move I taught Listo for one of my favorite routines that we ever did together. And it's a routine where he's down Sphinx at this point. At first he's flocked like a playing dead dog or hurt dog.

And then he gets up into a Sphinx and in the music, the way the music goes, I taught him how to make it look like I was ratcheting him with a crowbar, but it's a cane in the routine. Like I was getting him his butt up in increments and it was extremely effective because of these little increments. He just doesn't go from a down to a head down bow, but in the air, he does it in time with the music. And, uh, so my current Saki can do a reverse bow, but he doesn't have that ratcheting that I really focused on for that routine. And in that same routine, he does a fantastic arabesque. So I had these two moves in that routine and the music in that routine is still dear to me. And the interesting thing about that routine is that it's, it's actually from a division of freestyle called He'll Work to Music or In Sync, which has some limitations to it. So in other words, your dog can't do distance moves, things like that. And when people see this routine to the music of Michael Jackson singing Smile, it's a Charlie Chaplin song, actually. When they see this, they think it's a great freestyle routine and it's not. So in a way that's, it was a, it makes it all the more meaningful to me that it turned out to be such an incredible routine because it's not even a freestyle routine. It had some limitations on the types of things I could do in that routine. So I think to this day, that continues to be like one of my all-time favorite routines I've done. Listo was an amazing dog. So that adds to that too. And Saki and the blind routine that I told you about earlier is probably with Saki, my, my very favorite that we've done so far. So yeah, go. Yeah. Also, Denise said, and lots of variety in that one. Everybody kind of has their own different thing that's meaningful and exciting for them. All right. So I want to shift back to the talk a little bit about competing. Obviously, like we've talked a little bit about how fun it can be to watch, but I don't know a whole lot. And, and our audience probably doesn't know a whole lot about, you know, kind of what things make for an exciting routine or what makes for a high score and how you can kind of be competitive or be showy in it as a sport. So Julia, do you want to start us off on this one? No, no. I'm kidding. Yes. I'll start you off. You don't have to. I can skip you. I think I, this is a, this can be a really difficult question, the way that it's phrased in terms of being competitive, because I, in, in the freestyle world that I live in, in freestyle land, I don't think those of us that are competing at high levels, think about the competitive part of it.

I don't think we're trying to get high scores. I mean, we do want to qualify, but I think what's, what I, I believe is more important is presenting that vision that you have and, and doing it in a way that draws the audience in and that showcases the relationship and training, the time and the energy that, that you and your dog have worked together to create this for you. Freestyle is an audience participation, participation sport. And so I would say that most top level freestylers, at least in the U S I don't know about other countries, but in the U S we're not doing it to become top freestylers. We're not doing it to get high scores and, um, you know, get that first place over. I, I really want to beat Michelle, darn it. You know, I don't think that, uh, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but that's not what I think about. And so, um, but having said that in order to show well in a level or a division or a class. So if you're up in the advanced levels, there are certain requirements that you have to meet in order to qualify at those levels. And so you have to be thoughtful about what you're including in your routine. Um, I, I think some of the things that top freestylers think about that beginner freestylers haven't quite learned yet is that freestyle is not just a string of tricks. Yes, there are tricks and freestyle routines, but it's how the, these behaviors and moves are connected, how they flow from one into the next, how they are layered in the music. Um, whether there are pace changes in that music to add interest in variety, whether there is layering within the dog and handler moves that create interest for the audience. Uh, whether there are breaks in flow that, that cause. The audience to, um, have the routine be halting or jarring. And I think those are the things that advanced freestylers think about as they start to put their, their upper level routines together that beginner freestylers don't always think about. What I found is beginner freestylers try to put a lot of stuff into their routines and they try and put a lot of hard stuff in their routines that maybe they shouldn't be working yet. They don't have the foundation to build that, that on yet. Um, they tend to pack their routines. I would much rather see a loose, a loosely choreographed routine that is done well with precision and accuracy and flow and smooth transitions that take the dog into the next behavior, uh, than a routine that is trick after trick, after trick, after trick, after trick. So I think as advanced freestylers, those are some of the things that we learn as we move up in the

classes is how to put together routine that is cohesive within, um, uh, what it is that we're trying to convey and how we are interpreting the music. Beginner routines. It seems oftentimes you can take the same routine and just plug any music onto it and it, and there, you wouldn't have any type of interpretation of the music. It would just be a bunch of tricks with music in the background. I see that a lot in beginner routines because they, they don't quite know how to, um, sequence the behaviors together in a way that literally interpret the music. And, and showcase their dog's strengths and showcase the handler strengths and showcase what that, that team can do together. It's not about the dog doing a lot of tricks to music. And I think advanced freestylers have learned that by their experience and moving up to the levels of learning about their, their freestyle partner, their dog. It's really interesting to kind of think about that and think about that as the differentiator between a beginner ish routine, right? A routine that comes across as more beginner and a routine that comes across as more advanced and, um, for lack of a better term, I guess the word polished is kind of what's coming to mind, right? Polished is a great word because oftentimes what you see in beginner routines is a very, um, uh, oh, what's the word I want? A little herky-jerky, I guess. Stop, start, stop, start, stop. Do this, then do another thing, then do this. There's, there's no flow. There's no, um, Um, the, the, the transitions are abrupt rather than smooth. And I think that's because they don't know. Freestyle, freestyle is an interesting sport in that because you can do anything you want, because you can train anything you want. Um, people think there aren't foundation skills that you just pick and choose and I'll train this and I'll train this and I'll train that. And then I'll put it all together and put it in a blender and have a routine. And, uh, it's not until you really start to be a little more thoughtful about your dog, what they need in order to feel successful and have joy in performing this routine as well, um, that you start becoming more thoughtful about how you're putting these moves together. What are the transitions look like? What are the transitions feel like for the dog? Uh, and I, and hopefully I think now there are more and more instructors, Michelle, Dante, myself, Sandra Hartman, there, there are more instructors teaching freestyle that, than there used to be. I mean, we used to have, we just kind of made it up as we went along. We didn't know. And now we know more.

And now hopefully we can teach these newer, younger teams, how to put together routines that are much more enjoyable for themselves, their dogs and for the audience. What about you, Michelle? Are you the opposite of Julie? Do you go to competition? Like I want to beat the pants up Julie this week. Yes, she does. As a matter of fact, no, the other way around. I want to beat the pants off of Michelle. What's really true though, is I can totally relate to newcomers in the sport, doing it with that mindset of like another sport they've done. Uh, did I qualify? Did I get my ribbon? Oh, I got second place. That's fine. I was that way when I did my first two dogs in lower level. But when you really start getting a feel for how cool freestyle is for another purpose, which is doing a better job of performing and feeling that vision come to life and see that it actually was entertainment. It, it, it, there is an element here of entertainment, which is different than other dog sports. So, you know, you don't see people around an obedience ring, you know, stomping their feet and clapping while somebody's, you know, everyone's, Ooh, that's, it was like a half point off. I think she got a core. Ooh, that front wasn't exactly the, you know, everyone is kind of the judge on the outside and watching freestyle people are relaxed and they're like, just watching it for what it is. Now, Julie really covered a lot about the sport in general and beginner versus advanced. I totally agree with everything she said. I think once you go up in the ranks and you have experience, your experience make you realize what is important about the sport. And I think that you realize that what makes more entertainment is nice, smooth. Everything goes smoothly. If it's abrupt, it's on purpose because of a section of music that that abruptness actually matches. Right? So you're actually doing something like that on purpose, which is harder. It's a harder skill to do. But what I don't want to forget to tell people about this sport is that as you enter the sport, you want to become a better ad libber. Because nobody is watching what you're doing off a list of you're supposed to, this is what your routine is. It's not like, oh, agility, you're off course. Sorry. And, you know, that doesn't happen. So I have to say some of the best performances I've had, I had to tweak something on the fly that wasn't going well and ad lib for a moment and maybe get back on track, you know, as the music progressed or something like that. But if you do it well, there is nothing that's going to go wrong. It isn't like anyone even noticed.

So even if the judge knows your routine because they've seen it a few times and all of a sudden something's different, they judge it for what is presented at that day and at time. So I'm going to tell you a funny story. This is really funny that this happened. So I was the first day of a two-day event. My springer Cabo and I were doing to the cabaret song, Willkommen. I was all dressed up like Joel Gray. And I had my cane and we were doing our stuff. And there's a part of the routine where I bend down and I hand the cane to Cabo. And he follows me carrying it. Okay. And then I turn around and he gives it to me and we proceed. Well, for some bizarre reason on this day, maybe I handed it to him, not centered, off balance. I don't know. But anyway, he drops the cane after he walks a couple steps. And I turn around in character. And I made this big face and like, oh, you dropped the cane. And then I bent down and very politely, like I was being polite, handed it back to him. So the routine went on and he did fine. Well, that evening, after the judging, the judge approached me and said, oh, I just love that part where he drops the cane. It was so cute. And I said, well, you're not going to like the performance tomorrow. So the bottom line is ad lib, don't react to mistakes. It's over with. You might as well just go forward. And I think the more people do freestyle, after they get out of the early levels, they realize that they can relax with it. And usually going into an ad lib can kind of snap a dog out of like maybe not responding or something, just doing something different, like running away from them for a few steps. So it is a hard sport in that you have all these behaviors in a row that you're doing, right? But understand, you don't have to do them in that order. What's being judged is what happens out there. And if you react in a way that points out a mistake happened by trying to get the dog to do it, you know, experienced freestylers know, yep, didn't take the cue. On to the next thing. You know, it's just information for training. It's not that I'm going to try to fix it and make them do it. I'm just going to go forward, whether that's an ad lib or not, or just move on in the routine. So that's a part of the sport that's kind of intriguing when you're used to sports that everyone knows the moment you make a mistake, right? And every, oh, look, he blew that. He missed his contact. He didn't sit on the heel, you know. Yeah, all that stuff. The cool thing about freestyle is it truly is freestyle. You can make it. You could go in the rain, play music, and just go. Yeah.

Which is actually what I had a student of mine do recently. She was having trouble getting a video for a competition. And I was filming for her. And the dog was just, you could tell he was just getting kind of sour on the beginning. And the beginning, of course, the whole thing wasn't going well. And I said, you know what? This music and you and the dog look really nice moving to this music. I want you to just ad lib the whole thing just for the fun of it. The dog was high as a kite because she wasn't doing that opening sequence that he was getting sour on. And it went really well. And I think she actually submitted it and qualified. So anyway. That's awesome. I love both of those stories. So Dante, I know you're coming at this from a little bit of a different angle, having done, you know, some high-pressure performance stuff, but not necessarily competitive stuff. Do you want to kind of talk about it from your perspective? Yeah, I think there's a lot of similarities, actually. What Michelle was saying about, you know, just counter losses, take information. The dog didn't do it. Just keep going. That, of course, if you're performing to people, you don't want to stop and train. You can't do that, right? You just have to keep going. I do think that interpretation of the handler has a big role. So you want to make sure that what you're doing has to do with the dog, has to do with the music, has to do with the story, but does not overshadow the dog. But it still helps people understand what you're trying to convey and make your dog look better. Right? So, yeah, when she does this and, oh, my God, you dropped the cane. She made the dog look better because, wow, that dog dropped that cane on cue. And it was so good. It was great. So the idea is that, like, you also have to be a bit of an actor when you're doing freestyle. You can't, like, it doesn't matter how shy you are. That will count. That will, you know, people will be seeing you as well. You don't want them to see you too much, but, yes, they will see you. When I perform for people, one thing that I always try to make sure that is in my performance is that what people see looks like I'm having fun. Looks like I'm playing with my dog. Looks like it's very easy what we're doing for me and for the dog. It's very natural. Right? So if it looks, and it wasn't like that in the beginning, that I had to learn. Because as a trainer, I always like to do the hard thing. I always, oh, I train this so much. It's so difficult. But then you do it. And if you're, you know, just joined to a general audience, they're just like, eh,

I like the dog, you know, standing on high legs. It's cute. Everybody claps for that. But, like, you're all intricate trick. All this thing they spend so much time doing. And, you know, doesn't get the same reaction. And it is about reaction. Right? It is about, like, we'll say here, the music, it gets the people going. And then you use your social cues to get people going with you. Because, you know, it's like, there are moments that I was like, it was basically just saying, hey, look at this amazing dog. And, you know, and then I'm with the people watching how amazing this dog is. And all the things we can do together. And it's play and it's fun. That's how I see it. And it's very free because there's no judging. There's no, like, you know, specific specifics that you have to do. You just do. And since, like, if you're performing quite frequently, you can kind of, you know, shape your performance based on what normally works, how people react. And then you just, you know, tweak things a little bit. I normally have a couple of rules. Like, we usually start with a bang. Meaning it's something that has to, you know, if people are on their phone, they'll get out of their phone because people are screaming next to them. That's what we want. We want them to, whoa, what happened? And then you go into, you know, your routine. There has to be a moment to catch, to pick people up in the middle. And also very clear ending where, you know, it's not too flat. So that's basically what I try to do. When you're performing to a lot of people, it's become harder and harder. Like general audience, it's harder and harder for people to maintain attention for more than two minutes today. You know, it's very difficult. So you want to make sure you're not just throwing stuff because then they can't understand. I tend to also repeat things a couple of times so people can actually see what just happened. But I try not to just do a bunch of things thinking that they will be just amazing and not. You kind of have to, you know, measure. I give you something, you digest it. And before you leave, I throw you something else. And then, you know, you stay with me for a little longer. That's like my take. And one of the things that I enjoy about, you know, performing simply, not necessarily competing, is that flexibility of not feeling like there is a score or anything like that. There is, of course, people are looking at you and how much they, how they react will tell you, you know, how things went. But there is, you know, a kind of more freedom in that sense, at least in yourself.

And the great thing is for the dog, it makes no difference at all. Either way, they're fine. Yeah, they don't care if the audience loved it. They had fun. Yeah, yeah. All right, to round things out, you know, if we were to kind of take our conversation from today and drill it down into one key piece of information you really wish all the handlers out there, all the listeners understood, you know, what would that key piece be? Michelle, do you want to start this one? Sure. I think the biggest problem I see in a lot of training is not planning anything before training, not thinking about what a goal is for today or what they're going to work on. They just have a tendency to start training. So I'm going to say one phrase. Before you train, use your brain. That usually will make things go a lot better. If you just take five minutes to make a plan so that you know where you're starting, where you want to go. I like that. Dante, what about you? I would say, yeah, I would agree with Michelle. Especially, you know, if you want to take this, you know, more seriously and think about competing, that's, you know, it's essential because that thinking in the beginning will make all the difference throughout your career. Now, because we said so much that, you know, being a professional and doing this in higher levels can be quite difficult, but I also, I feel like I have to remind people that, you know, even though there is, you know, moves that you see that look so difficult and intricate, and there's one thing that I've learned from other, you know, freestylers that I admire, and that I always thought, oh, these people must know something that I don't. They are, you know, they must know these techniques, these, you know, there's something there, because it's amazing what they can do with their dog, like what Julie said, the German girl, Sandra Roth. And eventually, you know, meeting people and knowing these people and talking to them and seeing them train, you realize that it's, you know, it's not that. It's understanding that it's a process, that you need consistency, you need to be clear. And in a sport like freestyle, your connection with your dog as, you know, a team, as partners in life will make a big difference. It's not, you know, like in sometimes in other sports where people have a dog, you know, for a sport and do this. And I think when it comes to, you know, to doing stuff where it may require so much from you as a team, having that connection and being, you know, really partners and enjoying that and enjoying that process and understanding that, you know, it is a process.

Things just need consistency. And, you know, of course, doing things right, of course. But that is, I guess it's patience and understanding to just be with your dog and really have fun. That seems simple, but it makes a huge difference on how you can perform later on, even if you're thinking about, you know, taking it to the next level. I love that as a takeaway. Julie, you want to leave us with the last thought? Yeah. Last thought. Obviously, both Dante and Michelle are fabulous trainers and what they said is so true. A couple of things. First, I think in any sport, especially in freestyle, to consider the dog. I think when we enter the world of performance sports, we don't consider the dog to the degree that we should. A lot of times the performance sport is about us, about our social life, that we want to get out there and do well, that we want to earn a cue or place or... And I think we really need to consider the dog much more than we think we do. Our dogs are going to do whatever we want. They love being with us. They want to do the activities. They try hard. I just... I sometimes feel that we're not taking the dog into consideration in terms of what we're asking them to do, especially in the sport of freestyle, and that we're skipping on some of their education in what they need to learn and understand before we push them to new levels and new heights. I think, like every sport, freestyle has foundation. And I think that freestylers tend to skip on foundation because they can teach their dogs to do anything they want. So they go for the fun, cool, sexy stuff. And that's going to be... Those particular fun, cool, sexy, higher level behaviors, the dog will enjoy so much more if you give them the foundation and the education they need to do them well. Clarity, I think, as Dante said, and consistency in their training of these advanced moves is imperative. So don't ask your dog to do calculus if you haven't taught them algebra. Don't ask them to do algebra if you haven't taught them multiplication tables. And I think freestyle is an easy sport to push your dog into areas that they aren't prepared for yet. And so I think that the work, the time, the energy that you put into freestyle, for many people, it may seem very, very daunting and difficult. And there are so many sports that you can do now and have lots of success with, with very little time and energy put into it. There's still training involved and there's work involved. But there's a lot of time and energy that goes into freestyle because of the different components, the handler components, as well as the dog training.

There's stuff, in addition to dog training, you have to do in freestyle. And so in spite of all the work that freestyle entails, the benefits, the rewards, that joy, that... I can't even explain sometimes the feeling you get when you go out and perform a routine and everything goes right. But that feeling makes all of the work and the time and the energy that many of us don't have time to do other sports because of the time that we put into freestyle. That moment in the ring when it all comes together with your dog is priceless. Oh, that's a commercial, isn't it? We should make that a commercial. Just take that last line, huh? Yeah, just that last line. It is a difficult sport and there are a lot of components to it that are not the same in other sports. And it is hard to figure out what the foundation is and what your dog needs to do well. And we do have to consider the dog to a really high degree in the sport, not unlike other sports, but it's a different type of consideration. And I think to many, many people, it's just, it feels daunting. And sometimes it does feel that way. But I have to tell you, and I think all of us have spent time competing in other sports. It's not like freestyle is the only thing we've ever done with our dogs. We've competed in a lot of different sports. And I just keep coming back to the joy that freestyle brings me and my dogs. It's so worth it. What a nice note to end on. Thank you all, all three of you. We ran a little long, but I super appreciate you all making the time and coming on the podcast and chatting about this. So thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We will be back next week with Amy Cook to talk about living with and loving a reactive dog. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice, then our next episode automatically downloads to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie 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.