에피소드 26: Debbie Zappia

Wow, that's a really long, long way back for sure. And I didn't know. I knew somehow. I don't even recall why I know this, but I knew about you having a Rottweiler. I've never seen you with a Rottweiler, so that must have been way before I was paying attention in the sport in the States. And so, wow, Schutzhund for a very, very long time. What was and what is your favorite part of dog training altogether? Forget about A, B, and C in Schutzhund, but like just dog training. What do you like the most about it? I think then and even now, what I liked was seeing what a dog could do. So especially starting out at that time, we didn't have internet like we have today. So we didn't have social media. We didn't have videos. We didn't have anything like that. So it was just playing with dogs at the time and seeing what a dog could do and trying to set up environments so that I could get the most out of my dog and have my dog perform. And at that time and still today, probably obedience is my favorite part of it. And obedience being very, very loose. Shaping behaviors, getting dogs to do things, overcoming obstacles with your dog. That was always my love. Just seeing what a dog could do. I know from what we've been talking recently over the phone, I know you have quite a few similarities. Like you always, as you said, before internet, we had to search for new and old knowledge was delivered in a very different way. But even today, with all the success, you're still very curious about what is out there and who's doing what and trying to improve training and style and everything, right? Yes. Yeah, I am. I think, you know, when you look at somebody who's been in this as long as I've been in this, you're coming from a point of view that I knew absolutely nothing. Even today, you still, when you see things going on, you think you absolutely know nothing, even now. But at that time, it was literally you knew nothing. And there was nowhere where to really learn it. So you were experimenting on your own. If you could find someone that was actually doing a workshop or a seminar, you tried to get to it no matter where it was because they were few and far between. And then you just watched what other people were doing and would go home with whatever you saw and you would try to apply that. At the time that I was competing in Chits in the beginning, just a jump in a scaling wall was amazing. You know, you saw those apparatuses and you thought, oh, my gosh, how am I ever going to do this? How am I going to get a dog to go over this?

And I remember Gunther Lanfer, who was a judge, ended up being a dear friend of mine, died over the last few years ago, was in Albany, New York. And I went to see him and see what he was doing. There was a trial there and I wanted to know what was going on. And at the time, I think I had my Rottweiler. So it was my second dog. And so he was teaching the scaling wall, how you actually taught to go over a scaling wall. And he told me, you know, sit here with your stand here next to your dog and go over the wall and then come back. And so I'm like, OK, well, I can do that. So like like the dog over the top of the wall and came back over the wall and he died laughing. But that's how little I knew. Right. I didn't know that. And so I really can feel for people who haven't done the sport before and who are trying to learn and do things because I was there. You know, I was there. I failed more times than I passed. Right. And you had like the time when you got really into it and everybody started to pay attention. Women were not really. It was somehow considered still like the men, the guys thing. And and you broke some walls and you earned respect, you know, in a very like here I am. And this is what I do. And it's not by a chance. I can do it again and again and again. Tell me a little bit how that felt with I mean, I'm sure there was a struggle that I I never got to experience just because, you know, of you being a woman and I I'm I don't know. You tell me was that was there a struggle? How how how was that? Yeah, there was a struggle. Well, as you said, there were not very many women in the sport at all. And so if you did attend a seminar, if you went somewhere and then when you finally broke in and were actually trailing your dog, you took a lot of abuse. And by abuse, I mean. People would actually at that point in time, try to make you cry, would say things to upset you. And right from the very beginning, my thought was. No one's going to make me cry over dogs. That's never going to happen. Like you can do as much as you want to do to me and I'll stand here, but you're not going to make me cry and you're not going to make me leave. And so you would go to different things, go to seminars, learn what you could learn, go back and play with it at home. For me, it was go out and fail usually in the beginning stages until you broke through, as you just said, and then you started competing. And then it was a matter of now you're you're out there and you're actually competing and you're actually able to go to a national event with your dog. You've scored enough. You're there.

You've decided you're going to give it a try. And again, you were fighting a hierarchy that existed before you. My number in USCA when I joined USCA was in the 300s. So that shows you how long ago even I became a member of USCA. So when I would go to trials, you were fighting groups that existed already. Like they called it the Bama Group, right, which was the Alabama boys and girls there. I mean, Gary had a wife, Pam, and she was involved some. She was probably the only other one that I really remember at the time that was involved. But so you were just fighting these different groups that already existed that were winning. And you were out there with your dog trying to win. And that took a while. And people always have their opinion, of course, their perception of you. And I hear it even to this day where some people think, oh, my gosh, she's all positive. She never corrects a dog. And then I hear somebody else or what comes down the grapevine where, oh, I'm so compulsive. And that's all I do is compulse a dog. And then I hear somebody else, oh, she only uses cookies. And then it's always something. She can only train that kind of dog or this was the lucky moment. And yes, so I heard, you know, she bought the dog that was already trained. And then I heard, well, she didn't train that. Everybody has trained my dogs but me, if you talk to people. It's from she didn't train the dog. Jean England trained the dog. Or she didn't train the dog. The dog was trained in the Netherlands. Or she didn't train the dog. Jan Cox trained the dog. Or she didn't train. It was always someone else training my dog. Never me. My husband. That was another funny one because my husband does, like, virtually nothing. And people would call him and ask him questions. He didn't train the dog. He showed one dog and I trained that dog. So it was always that. And it just became a joke that that's the way it was. And, you know, you just have to keep on going, putting one foot in front of the other until you accomplish something. And I had a dog, Dante Trajo. Dante, I remember. I remember all of your dogs. The German Shepherds. Simply because we, you know, kind of grew up in the sport at the same time. Right. Right. So, yeah, I know there was Nathan. There was Dante, Escobar, Iron, of course. I know I'm missing somebody. Jai was another one that I competed at the World Championships with. There were a number. But I think Danny. Well, my first dog that I ever competed at a World Championship was Natan. And he was a show dog out of Vopo Kershenthal. Which, that was a time when show dogs actually worked. Yes. Yeah.

I made a world team with him and competed with him. And that was the first time that I did that. But I think it was really the time that I was competing with Dante that things started to change a little bit for me. Would you say that was the time when you started to realize that you're good at it? Or when you started to earn the respect from the rest of the people in the sport? Well, it was during that time that I was approached by an organization that existed within USCA. And was told that if I joined their group, I would finally start doing something with my dog. And I listened and said, well, you know, thank you very much for inviting me into your group. But I think I'm going to go this on my own. And if I make it, I make it. And if I don't make it, I don't make it. That's okay with me. So that dog went out onto the field. And it was in Missouri, I think, the first time I showed him. And he, you know, he wasn't perfect. In fact, dumbbells, he almost chewed them apart. But I had a standing ovation with him at the end of my obedience routine. People stood up and clapped. Yeah. And I think that was the first time I realized, even though they weren't giving me the scores, that my dog actually looked good. And that I could build upon that, even though I wasn't getting those. And so what ended up happening at the end of that trial is I met Carla Griffith for the first time. And she came up and was talking to me about my dog. And she's like, so when are you actually going to do something that's going to allow you to get the points that you should get? And I'm like, well, I don't know what you mean. I'm just going to keep on doing the same thing I'm doing right now. She goes, how is it working for you not to say anything? And I'm thinking, you know what? She's right. How is it working for me? It really isn't working for me very well. So what I ended up doing is I came home and I had a friend of mine that was pretty good with videos at the time. And so we took a trial and I can't even remember which one it was. It was one of the national events. And we blacked out the handlers, the handlers that actually scored the highest. Right. And we're placing on the podium. So we blacked them out, but we showed their dog's performance. And then we showed my dog's performance and we took it step by step. This is the sit out of motion. This is the healing. This is the down out of motion. This is the stand out of motion. This is my dog. This is theirs. This is my dog. This is theirs. This is theirs. This is theirs. Could you please explain to me how I have the scores I have because I'd really like to improve.

And I sent that to the head of the judges at the time. Wow. That took some courage. Yeah. This is the first time I think I'm telling this story. So what ended up happening was nobody really said anything to me. But after that, I actually started to get some decent scores. And I heard later, you know, years later, that the head of the judges said, you know, she has a point here. How do we justify this? So after that, I finally got a break. And I took second place at the North American Championships with that dog. And then things started to happen more and more. Wow. So that was my start. I remember these years. It was very difficult to break through the little camps and groups. And not that there were bad groups and whatever, you know, but there was a time. And I shared this with you also. Not necessarily being, you know, you being a woman and coming on your own. I did the same thing. I was on my own, but I had the alternative breed. I was the only one with the Marinoa that could never make the points, could never make the, even the Lierberg videos of, you know, to where you can compare them. It was very strange for me at that time, too. And, yeah, we just kept plugging along and kept showing. And I think that's how it's one way. I don't know, like, giving up just wasn't an option, right? No, it wasn't an option. It wasn't, and I loved it. And I'm sure, you know, you love it. We don't stay with this for any other reason except that we love what we do. We love the dogs. And so we just continue on with it. I mean, you went to put up some unreal scores and very well deserved consistently, like not one competition, not one championship, but over the years with so many dogs. I don't, like, I recently, because of the podcast, I was looking at statistics and, I mean, you've had from 97 to 99 in each phase numerous times with different dogs. There is no, like, you cannot call this anything but a very well-taught plan and training that fit every single dog. And I know without knowing you, your dogs on that level, I know that every dog was different. And I know what it takes for a high-level trainer to adjust to that dog to make the same accomplishment. Talking about this, which dog, and I know this is a very tricky and probably impossible question to answer, but when you look at all of your dogs, which one did you like and why in what areas of training and what was difficult? But let's go to the difficult part later. So if you're asking me, like, which was my favorite dog to work? And that probably taught me a lot on how to change what a dog looked like was Escobar.

So when I got him, he was older, and he wasn't extremely motivated. A lot of people thought I was crazy when I purchased him. But that dog was just such an awesome animal. He, at his age, as soon as he understood, like, how to shape something or how to offer a behavior or how to, he was totally 100% in the game. He made training so much fun. So that dog, because of that, I absolutely loved him. He had an excellent temperament. He could go anywhere. He could do anything. And that was the one that I ended up going to the Netherlands with. Yeah. And competing there, which I felt was probably one of the best trials I've ever attended. It was that trial at the Netherlands. So I loved that dog. I think probably, well, Iron has been a fantastic dog for me. He's motivated. He, again, he's another dog that always wants to do something for you. He lacked, at the time, it took a long time for him to develop the food drive that Escobar had naturally. Right? Arrows didn't come with that same level of food drive. He did over the years, but it didn't just naturally happen like it did with Escobar. But what he offered was just a whole other level of absolute physical power. That's one of the things that I loved about competing with him and just living with him, because the power that the dog had was incredible. Yeah. And you were able to control it. Yeah. And make 98, 98, 98, 99, 97, 98, 98. All these protection scores were insane. Right. Yes. And that was one of the things you love about him. And then I had the dog that I'm just finished with now. He was probably my most difficult dog I've ever trained. And he was my very last one to really look back at and talk about. So he was very, very difficult to hold together in all phases all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you are to, like, which part is you find most challenging or, like, kind of generally speaking of the three phases in Shuzun? For yourself? Like, where do you feel like you? I mean, I know we all have times where we hit the wall and it becomes interesting for us. Because if we don't hit a wall, if we don't get the challenge, we kind of plateau. So we like that. But there is moments where you kind of, at least I have moments where I'm like, I really have to dig very deep and almost question, can I? Like, is there a particular phase in the sport that you go there or they're pretty level for you? Well, probably the most difficult phase for me is bite work because I don't do, you know, I'm not a helper. Yeah. That's not the one. You're depending on? I'm depending upon other people.

And because I'm depending upon others, depending upon the dog I've had or the years that we're talking about, I might have a helper around that could do more things more often. And then I would have times that I had no one around except once a month or once every two months to actually work my dog. So when I think Iron's a good example of that one. When I had him, we had just moved to where we live right now. Now, my husband had had an accident that year. And so I had Iron right after that. So I was really kind of bound here at home in addition to not having as many things going on and having people come in. And I had started a business here. And so I ended up having to do a lot of the foundation work myself with him. And so that was one of those moments that you're talking about where I was by myself and thinking, how am I going to get this dog? To the level that you want to get to, right? To do those things. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to have to, I'm going to start it on my own. Somehow, some way, I'm going to make this work on my own. And at the time, there wasn't like platform training or that wasn't a thing yet that was really big. I had seen a little bit like with friends of mine in agility, with touch pads, those kinds of things. But that wasn't something that was really well known or used. And so I thought, well, I'm going to try this. I'm going to build myself a platform, but it's going to be a pretty big one. I'm going to have rubber on the top of it so he can run to it and not slide. I'm going to teach him by tying him back first to bark. You know, I'm going to get some barks out of him. So I had a table that I had used when I was training with Gene. And so I put him up on a table and I did my own barking and getting him going with that. Luckily, he was young. So it was all, you know, just pray. And I was just starting all of those behaviors for him. And he got to doing that. And then I started him on this little platform. It wasn't that little. It was big enough that I could actually do something on. Then I taught him to run to it. Then I started with a ball and taught him to bark with a ball. Then I had a sleeve. And that's how I progressed to getting him to bark and guard and do those things. And it was going pretty well. So he was doing a decent job with it. But then when I tried to transfer it to actual helpers, of course, it didn't go as well. You know, the first times he didn't do as much. And everybody wanted to go back to the same thing that we had done before. Where I put him on a line. And I'm like, let's not go to that yet.

I understand that that's where we're going to go. But he's going to do on you what he did on me. You just have to give him a bit. Give a little time. Yeah, you got to give him a little time. He's got to understand this. What we're asking him to do. And so that was a battle just among myself and the helpers that I were using at the time. To allow the dog to try and learn what he was doing and then progress from there. So because of that, I have to teach behaviors that I'm going to use in bite work, in the protection phase, kind of on my own. And then implement it with a helper. So if my dog doesn't know those behaviors, we're not getting a lot out of having a help friend. So in order to use my time efficiently, I had to teach those things. I had to teach those things ahead of time. Whether it was back transports or guarding, outing, coming to heel position with distractions. And so those things were done by myself. And then, you know, added into a program. Do you feel that now looking back at it and let's say you start a new dog, would you go that route again? Like I've done the same. I think many, many of us just don't have constant access. And that's probably just the nature of the game we're playing. And so we are forced to do things on our own. And I find that there is some really important fundamentals that it's really between me and my dog to teach them that I can do it better than my dog struggle with a few different helpers trying to find the right behaviors. How do you think about it right now? Would you go back again and do a lot of things on your own? Or if you have access to a helper, you will jump straight with it? No, I think at this stage I would still do a lot on my own. You know, I would start those behaviors and then look as my dog matured to put them on a helper. Yeah. Basically, I mean, you need a helper regardless to, at least I do. You do not because you can put a sleeve on yourself. But you need a helper to at least do some of the grip work, you know, teach them the targeting. I can teach some targeting, but again, I can't put a sleeve on to teach that targeting. So there's things like that, those basic things that you need someone for. But there's so many other things that if you've done it before, and like you said, you get a feel for your own dog, that you can start that with your own dog. Yeah. And move along. And probably one of the biggest gains from doing this on your own is in a training session, you have all the time you need. You can repeat it as many times as you want to.

And another really big one for me is to be able to tell my dog, this is not going to work. And you've got to trust me on this. We can have the argument, but eventually you will realize that when I tell you that this is a bad idea, it's not going to work. And I'm not talking about putting some crazy compulsion on the dog. I'm just talking even on a conversational level of saying, dude, it's the wrong way. And I have a dog now that is guideable. And when I put him on a helper, not that he immediately is going to listen, but the chances for me to repeat it three times and he says, oh, I know where that's going. I better comply. I better be guidable. I better look up to you. And I think that's one of the most important gains from doing a lot of things on your own. Right. Absolutely. Now when you're in that position, you know that the things that you've taught your dog already, they may not come right away, but they're going to come a lot faster than trying to teach it on someone else that doesn't know your dog. So I think that's why I would still continue to do it that way. The other thing is when you're doing these things on your own, you're setting up your environment the way you want your environment set up for success. So, you know, you're going into it at a point like where I am or you are where we know the things that we want to happen and we know the things that can happen. So we always want to set it up to get what we want, not what they want so that we're successful faster and faster and faster. And if we set up our environment that way, we're going to have more success. I try and tell people that train with me that, that whole same thing is like, know what can go wrong. Not just what you're going to teach, but know what can go wrong. So now you're prepared for that. You can tell a dog to sit and either it's going to sit or he wouldn't sit and you shouldn't get surprised either way. You've got to be ready to take direction because it will be one or the other. Right, right. But people aren't. Right. It's always a, oh, it gets started like, oh, what do I do now? Well, what about dogs? How soon do you like to start dogs? And how did that change over the years? Did it ever change for you? Well, I think if you have your druthers when to start a dog, it's when it's a puppy. Because puppies are so much fun. You know, they're just so wide open. They want to do everything. They want to shape everything. So that's fun. But to me, it's also fun when you get an older dog and you have to like rehab that dog and show the dog that there's a different way.

So I think there's pluses and minuses for all of that. Like with the German Shepherd dog, we have so many physical problems with the breed right now that it becomes more and more difficult to take on a puppy because you don't know what's going to happen with that puppy. Right. So even though puppies are so much fun, they're much more of a gamble than buying a 15-month-old dog. Even when you teach something to a puppy, and I'm not against, I play with puppies also, of course. But there is something different, something more direct when you're teaching an older dog. But they really understand why this has to happen and what the consequences are in a more mature way. And as much as I love playing around with puppies, I really like a dog that is mature to grasp the ideas on a different level when we train. And this goes for anything, being tracking, being obedience, whatever it is. It's like, I guess the training goes more around understanding what we are doing, why we are doing it, instead of just simply doing it, but not grasping the reasons behind it when you have the little puppy. They just do things, but not necessarily. Even though you see them paying attention and even they understand the consequences and pros and cons, it's a different level of how they look at it. So what age is your favorite age? Gosh, it's very hard. Like right now, I have a female that's about almost a year old, and I decided that I'm going to do a ring sport with her just because, really. But I have an almost two-year-old male that I'm doing IGP. And I kind of felt behind with him for a little while, but we're doing so, like everything is coming along so nice and so quickly. And I really believe that it's because of his maturity that I can tell him, go around the blind this way, and he will go the other way, and I can tell him what happened. And he will self-correct with the understanding that he made the mistake to where a six-month-old puppy will change because of reinforcement, but not necessarily I don't think he will comprehend the importance that I demand this way, not necessarily because of reinforcement, right? So I, as much as I really, as I say, love to play puppies, I feel that lately, in the last few years, the most important part of the training, for me, it's around anything after 16 months old. It seems like it just comes much, like as I said, I like that understanding of, okay, this is the lesson, this is how we can do it. I find it easier for me to explain it and not, I don't know if I even make sense. It's just that the puppy will do exactly the same thing,

but I just don't feel that they really understand how important that is. Right. And an older dog, when you are in tune, when you have that kind of, you know, bond and you have the focus and the desire and the dog is beatable, that goes very quickly a long way. And so, yeah, I think, but, yeah, I wouldn't let a young puppy sit around. That's just impossible, right? Mm-hmm. What was your biggest moment? We didn't, I don't think I, even if you said it, I missed it, but when did you really realize that, okay, I'm good at this? Not getting the recognition, but when you felt like I can do this on a very high level, I'm good at this. Was that a gradual thing or how did it go? Yeah, I think it was gradual. I think maybe the first time that I had an inkling that I could probably do it on a high level was with that dog that I just said, Dante Trajo. But honestly, even throughout that, like when people talk to me now about in the past and, you know, what road I took to get here, and it was always for me, whatever dog I had, basically, unless there was something that the dog could not be trained and compete in Shudson, whatever dog I had, I pretty much took and did something with. And it was always doing it and figuring out how to do it and bringing my dog up to the level, like you just said, that my dog was going to go out and score high in all three phases. That was interesting to me. So I never looked at it like some people do, like I have to win a world championship or I have to get to that level. It was always I'm going to do it and do the best that I can do and then walk onto a field and hopefully I'll do it. Right. That was my approach. After you started to be successful on that kind of level on a regular basis, how did you deal with the stress and the pressure when you were coming on the field and everybody is silent and you know everybody is on you? Did that, how do you handle that? Because like I have a whole different, you know, like for me, I have my experience, but I'm curious always with a high level competitor, how they manage that? Because that's a very, I mean, it's probably more critical to be able to handle yourself and the dog and to show it at that moment when everybody is not doing anything but setting you down, trying to break everything and nitpick. And you know it and you're on the field and it's your time to show. So I think that's a big question, but I think it's a few different parts. So I think for me, where I turned a corner, was I used all of those years of never having success. Right? And then said, okay, I'm going to take that and I'm going to make that work for me.

And so when I was warming up with my dogs, I would say, we're going to show them. We're going to go out there and we are going to show them. And like, I would talk to my dog, right? Like you and me, we are going to show them together, right? We are going to do this and we're going to do this the best that we can do this and we are going to wow them. And basically that's, that's the approach that I took. It's like, fuck everybody. Sorry to say it. I'm doing this. Yeah. No, no, you have to. Right. And so I would so get into that zone of my dog and I, right? Nothing else. My dog and I, we're going to go out there and we are going to do this. And that's basically how I approached it. I think, I think the hardest trial was Finland. Um, and I think if you talk to people who competed at that, Finland was the one that you won the championship, the world. It was, but I think it was the most difficult venue to compete at because from start to walking on a field was, I'm going to throw out 45 minutes to an hour. So you had to report to a tent and at that tent, you had to be checked and your dog's collar had to be checked and then you had to wait at the tent. So you had to put your dog on a down and you had to take your dog and you had to walk to the entrance of a tunnel and you had to be escorted. And now you had to wait at the entrance of a tunnel. And again, things are going on all around you. Then you had to be escorted to the bottom of that tunnel. Right? And now you had to wait again. And then you had to walk the entire length of that field to the other end of the field along a glass corridor that was looking inside where people were inside knocking on the windows and you had to walk down through there and then you came to a concrete waiting area. That was a hill. You had a hill, a very steep hill that you had to go up. And then you had to go up this very steep hill. And now you're literally standing on the top of this steep concrete ramp into the stadium with nothing until you're called out there. Wow, yeah. And from start to finish it was a long haul. And now you had to go out and compete. And that was extremely stressful for me because draw night I drew as my partner on the field the number one draw for Germany. So we were now paired together. Right? So that was another big thing. I'm getting goosebumps. I can just envision it. Right. So the night of the draw I was like oh my god how could this possibly happen to me? Right? So out we go and you just you have to concentrate. You have to say exactly that and that's what I said there. It's like we're going for broke here bud. Let's do this. Well that's that's a part of that training that it's highly underestimated that preparation that build up ritual

whatever we want to call it before you walk onto the field. Yeah. and knowing that you have him with you at his max at his best attention and motivation level. I think a lot of trainers can benefit of maybe sharing some of your ideas and experience of this kind of preparation because really it almost doesn't even matter how good you can be at your best day but I think it's far more important to be able to convince your dog that that next step that we're going to make and we're going to walk onto the field we both are ready to do our thing and that takes a special approach for that specific preparation right? How do you what's your experience and how do you deal with that? First I'm a person that had my dog ready ahead of time so I was not going to a major competition looking to train my dog heavily by the time I went to a major competition I was looking to make everything as easy as I could make it for my dog so as little gambling as possible yep as little gambling as possible high levels of reinforcement in anything he did if I was competing in Europe other people would often look for the hardest tracking sites to go to you know push their dogs I would look for either the easiest or if I went to a hard one I'd use a lot of food I would make sure that my track was laid in such a way that my dog could not make a mistake because the last thing I want to do is put into his head right now to be shaken right before I want him to go in the same way that he thinks he is a king and he is going to conquer and so everything that I do that week before is designed to do that there's going to be a tremendous amount of reinforcement and obedience I'm not doing bite work much at all that's done I'm walking onto the field with a dog that I think is ready to do that so with that and then with just like you said you have to get mentally into what you're doing like it's got to be everything else is blacked out by the time you're walking onto that field it's you and your dog and it's my backyard so did it get harder to keep that mental stability as dog after dog and getting so good or did you start to feel more pressure as time goes on with every dog or is it about the same for you like as far as how you handle pressure pure pressure to perform did it get did you get better knowing it or did it become a little more stressful I think it all depended upon the trial whether it was more stressful or not and a lot of it was you know exactly my faith in my dog's performance I think now if you ask me now going forward I think I finally reached a spot that I know I probably can't perform at the level that I've performed before because I think you get to a point where you say well for me anyway it was like that's that's what I did all the time right and now I'm at a spot in my life that I say there's some

other things I want to do I want to travel I want to go places with my husband I want to take vacations and with that then you can't be training all the time yeah and if you're not training all the time and your head isn't there all the time you're not going to perform the way you did before it's that simple so I think I'm finally at a point that that's the case with me is I've like gotten to that level that says okay I've done it I don't know that I can keep doing it at that level anymore but until then yeah and I'm sure you know the next dog that I do will be similar once I start I'll want him to do the best that he can do and be involved in it but I don't think I will be quite as obsessed as I've been the rest of my life in the dog's performances and what I've done in the past yeah yeah this is a it really is very different when when you have one dog and you do well one time maybe two times but to put 10 15 years and to stay on top watching people come in and go it's very tasking and it's a lot of commitment and sacrifices as you said it becomes a point in time where you really have to say yeah I've done it I know if I put my time again but why there is sometimes really like I can just it doesn't mean we don't train we have fun but yeah there is other things and you know what I was thinking how about like your competition did you ever like you're going into a trial a big championship and you're like okay let me see what my competition is or did you try to really keep everything away you know like sometimes I would be like okay well there is this person this person that dog that dog what do I need to do and kind of play some mind games that sometimes your brain goes off the rail because you just create right not a good situation that's that's what I was saying about Finland was you know I was paired with Dirk and so now I'm like oh my god but typically for me I didn't go and watch the trial beforehand a lot so the day that I was trialing I would not go early I would go just before I needed to go on the field I didn't want to watch anything before me I didn't want to see what was going on that's how I approached it because if I watched then just then you psych yourself out yeah gets in your head yeah then it gets in your head about everything else and then you think well I can't do it I remember watching some of the big trials during the training phase the time that the teams had on the field and I watched people performing during that time and saying oh my god my dog can never perform at that level and then I decided after actually going out and doing better than most of them that I wasn't going to watch that anymore because it was psyching me out just like you said so instead of watching that I would try and stay away from that part of it and just go out and show my dog interesting yeah I I've done it both ways and it always been better to to push it aside and focus on on your stuff yeah

yeah really but having said that I kind of like during the training time like and I'm talking months before a competition I every time I would go to train it's in my head it's like yes we're training but this is what I'm after like my objectives and my goals during the training ahead of time I always would kind of put pressure on myself that way with you know okay well I'm competing against this super trainer this super dog this whatever I need to that's what would at the time make me get up at 530 and go tracking you know yeah absolutely that's a whole different thing those that time leading up to it yes absolutely you're going like you know you're flying on a plane for hours and hours and hours and landing in a foreign country and making your way to wherever that stadium is and you're you're now staying there for a week and you're prepping well the thing that gets you there and gets your dog there is having watched other people perform at those levels and you say okay I have to perform at that level or more than that level I mean that goes all the way back to my first national I ever saw which was like in 1980 something I think I saw I went to a national event and it was the bull rafts and Gary Hanahan Gene England I mean these were the people that were competing at the time and I saw their dogs and thought oh my gosh I want to do that like I want a dog that does that I want that relationship with a dog and and from there you know all the way through to where you're competing at high levels where it's seeing the other people that push you forward the other performances that you're seeing what that looks like and that's kind of what pushes you to the level you need to go in order to win what about judging I know this is a always interesting topic and and I guess my question will be more of who would be any judges that always come to mind as a judge that had a good eye I'm sure every judge at certain point will favor somebody this is us humans I'm sure every judge sometimes will the brain will just space away but overall who comes to mind for you to say that person as a judge had a the vision the idea of what we are doing is about I think years ago Gunther Deagle did a judge that I think a lot of that looks at an overall picture of a dog is Doug Deacon yeah another one that I mentioned earlier was Gunther Lanford that was someone who I had a great deal of respect for over the years so there's been a few and more recent I don't even know some of their names after a while I was showing under so many people that you kind of everything blurs together but those were people that stand out in the past as having an impact on me yeah that's exactly how you put it very well with having impact like getting seeing them and listening to their critics and going back home and self correcting your training because of that new detail that makes sense all of a sudden right

right I remember sitting next to Gunther Deagle at a trial it was one of the big events in this country he was here I think he was judging maybe bite work and watching and listening to him talk I had an opportunity to talk with him a little bit while he was watching some of the performances and some of the things that he said about the performances and where he thought the dog should end up what score he would give the dog while the judge on the field was giving the scores and that like you just said was interesting it was the things that you kind of remember as to what you want your dog to look like when it goes onto a field now we will get to the new well it's not new anymore but the Schutzmann club that you formed but I'm very curious how did that evolve where did you what made you choose that route what happened somewhere something changed for you with the sport or was there a fallout with the community or the sport itself because that's a big endeavor to make this big commitment I mean I know for myself like way back in early 2000 starting the Malino club and being the president and you know that's not an easy thing to do right and I think it was for me it was the overall direction that IGP was going in on a world level yeah we've seen the writing on the wall and we're still seeing it right it's still transpiring and moving forward and at the time when I finally made my decision I happened to be at a national at a board meeting in USCA and there was no doubt in my mind where we were heading like stick hits were being talked about and the board at that time believed that stick hits would always remain in the trial and my belief was that's not true we see what's happening in Europe stick hits are going to be abolished from our sport we see the direction that this is going right we know that prong collars are forbidden we know that e-collars are forbidden we know that there's so many restrictions on how we train our dogs now we know that our tests are going to be the bar is going to be lowered across the board we're not going to stress our dogs anymore we see the writing on the wall right now I guarantee you the next thing we're going to hear is jumps are going to be lowered or we're going to put something soft on top of the jump because our dogs can't jump anymore that's basically why they can come up with anything they want to come up with but our dogs can't jump so we're going to see that happen and so that's been what's occurring and it's going to be the demise of the sport we're not taking the forefront on trying to educate people we're not like your actual videos are starting to do that or you're actually having that conversation but USCA was the premier organization in this country and they had an opportunity to get ahead of this they could have gone out there and promoted our sport and promoted our dogs and shown the link between our dogs and search teams 9-11

whatever you want to make that connection to and the military there were many missed opportunities you're so right we've missed them all right we have not done anything and now we bitch and complain you go onto the forums everyone bitches and complains about everything right but they don't take a stand and do anything so I was finally after that meeting where I could see the writing on the wall where it was going to happen the kids were going to go away that I said you know what I can't go forward with this anymore because the bottom line for me has always been the dogs right the dogs and I see the whole thing form and structure go together right our structure and function go together so I see that whole thing breaking down right now I see that we're not going to stress our dogs anymore that we're not going to have a test that is viable that's going to last any length of time and I said I can't do this anymore I can't be a part of something that I don't believe in so because of that I had a number of people for probably two years that had been trying to get me to do something like this to kind of be a face of an organization and I finally said okay I will do it I will break from the hierarchy and I will try to do something else and you know I hear things too and people seem to think that that was an easy decision that was not an easy decision for me to do USCA Schutzen the WUSV those things were my world for years and years and years and when you finally say you know what I'm going to try a different path that's a very difficult move yeah I I'm sure like I totally get it and I mean hats off for making it happen and the more we see as you're saying the more we're seeing where the sport is evolving where everything is heading in Europe dog training the way we know it is doomed breeding selection everything becomes very problematic and questionable from this year on so I don't know I think your club has a big chance at least in the states right now to gain more popularity and hopefully it does and even if it doesn't have to be you know take over or replace but allowing people dog trainers to you know I feel that it's compatible enough that you can play in both areas if you want to but with understanding that the one is actually what the whole purpose the whole objective of shoot on was back in the 80s 90s and well I guess it kind of stops pretty much in 2000s we already start to see the changes that we are talking about and it becomes unstoppable and I mean we know that in Europe right now they're trying to reverse and do something on one hand but on the other hand they're still following that narrative of oh this is not a problem we don't need that we can take the stick away we can make it easier

and if we always think to please everybody then we miss what we do and why we do it and we like like where I'm going with this is I know at least Europeans right now are putting quite the effort to educate but it's very hard to educate once you have laws that you cannot use any form of aversive in your training how where do you educate and when we start to it's very dishonest conversation that they have to have between themselves and it affects the training it affects the breeding they are searching for solutions and I hope that they will get them but it's kind of like the saying that the train left the station already like you really left the station the horse is out of the barn and you're not going to change that right yeah it's it's too little too late that momentum is going forward and so fast now that that's going to be a really hard tide to change um and especially you know I hear people who I've known for years right that were such a proponent of Schutzinn IGP as a breed test for dogs right for working dogs now saying things like oh well the stick hit doesn't really mean anything right or and I'm thinking what are you saying seriously are you seriously going to say that now you really believe that that we're going to take out stick hits we're going to take out back transport real attacks we're going to take out real long bites with pressure we're going to take it and then what are we left with and at what point I guess this is a question that I ask myself like at what point are you kidding yourself participating in a world championship like what are you participating in like there there's there's a line that's got to be there that says you're no longer participating with a German shepherd dog or a malinois or because you know what a lab could do it or a golden retriever could do it and that's what we're going to see we're going to start to see golden retrievers labs different breeds come in and do our sport and then what are we going to tell ourselves are we seriously going to tell ourselves we have the same dogs that we used to because we're not going to have it we're not going to have that anymore we know through natural selection of anything that when things change animals change so if I have my hunting dogs that for generations have been able to hunt on birds and now they can only use a ball there's only so many generations that are going to pass before that innate behavior to go after a bird is gone correct right we're heading down that road and and the training the training like the training methods because when you make a dog a little bit frustrated a little bit angry expressing some form of dominance insisting on his ways it calls for a very smart training and I think changing the game

will allow positive reinforcement only training to be very successful and somebody can say well see positive reinforcement training works ultimately just as good if not better than anything else but we change the game to make it work exactly it would be much interesting more interesting for us to see no let's make the dog a little bit stomp his foot and say no no that's what I want to do my blood is boiling right now I'm against that guy right now making that dog listen versus a dog that is playing a polite game instead of golden retriever that will do of course the training will change but how is that productive I really don't get it because productive as a breed standard it is not that true and how many dogs you can have like you know military all around the world police you know they try to have their own breeding programs but no matter how many breeding programs are available they still have to rely on the big gym pool and selection from sport trainers and breeders it's just not visible it's not possible to have you know Lachlan Air Force base they can produce so many dogs the pool they work with is very small I wish that everybody understand that we need each other and it's an important like the education that we are missing explaining why this is why even dogs like to do this you know I mean we have all of our old dogs they're 14 15 years old three legged half blind can't hear but they see a sleeve or they smell it and they're like oh I'm gonna do this and they're crawling to the sleeve this is from it comes from a very special place and it seems like we're taking it away so do you do you work with I mean have you thought of any more of a global picture of the because I think there will be enough interest especially now of the what Schutzhund used to be and for those people that are new to the sport and you mean even even if you started 10 years ago you're new to the sport even if you started 20 years ago you're kind of new because you don't know the attack out of the blind in level one that you have and I love like that you brought these critical parts of the old program because that was a very difficult bite that you cannot prepare a dog for of course now the show dogs they all get a bite out of the blind but that's not the bite we're talking about that's not what we do no and right there and then we

very quickly can expose and select the dog okay well that dog he should rather do something else but that dog likes to do that he should stay in the program it was a brilliant exercise and I'm so glad that you have that in your program that you brought it back right and that's one of the reasons we brought it back and along with it now we also have that there has to be control in healing beforehand so we're trying to bring both parts of that back so that there's there's also well I shouldn't say back but there's the attack out of the blind but there's also showing that the dog really has to rise to the occasion for the AS1 and then the long bite you you you brought that back in the real long bite it's not a short bite run away turn around come back yeah yes again changer how how did somebody decide to change this I don't get it and again we have a call off and people ask questions about that well it's not why do you do a call off we do a call off because in today's society today's world if you're going to send your dog on a bite you should be able to call your dog back from that bite and the dog should be able to go whether it's a call back and a send at the same speed you're looking at all of that you want the dog that whether because we flip a coin so you never know which is which you don't know if you're going to have the call back first or the long bite first so the dog needs to be able to go for the highest score at the same speed on both of those exercises that's a very standard exercise in the ring sports all of the ring sports have it but that would be probably ! problematic exercise with somebody that would like to play both games they may look at that as a difficult exercise that can confuse the dogs or something that they will pay the price right but their game has to change then there's a point that you say then up your training right we're not looking to please every single person as you said before if you look to please every single person you're never moving ahead and doing anything yeah does it especially with a trained dog that's that's done a lot of long bites and never had to be called back that's a difficult thing to train because for three years they may have done long bites and never had to come back now you have to teach that but again it's teachable it's absolutely hundred percent yeah again like all all ring sports have this and they've had it for hundreds of years and when you know the dog always goes full speed and it's either or and it's totally cool have you been approached by anybody from Europe maybe to collaborate or like show any interest in what you do here we've had some questions we are having helmet riser in this weekend he's coming in to do a workshop for our judges because our judging kind of parallels their judging right so because of that he's going to go over all of his judging ability techniques his colors his everything that he does is going to be gone over with all of our judges to educate them more in their explanation and what they're looking at

I love that yeah I had him I think it was January or something this year and we just did a tracking thing but of course we know each other forever we talked dogs and he did make a very nice presentation for judges so I'm sure it's going to be ! and you hopefully don't forget and you record that for your judges program because it's definitely something to have in your library no question and yeah I mean the RSV 2000 I don't know I really feel that there is opportunity on a global level for people to do something outside the norm of this is what IGP is and this is what the sport is evolving to I think there is people that appreciate the program the old program and the old traits and I would say our training has evolved so much that you know when we have somebody that is all force free trainer that will say well I'm a crossover trainer I used to use prong collars and chock chains and I'm like when in 1983 you have no idea what we can do today you will not be able to separate which dog is trained how on a competition field because of the level of training because everything is dramatically different and improved it's a much clearer dog friendly way to train so whenever that argument comes of well this protection sports they always have this kind of barbaric ways of training and it's like I'm sure there is somewhere but this is not what the best trainers do right now right there is a very different intelligent training that makes things much easier right and and yeah I wish that somehow there is interest and hopefully maybe you have that conversation I'm sure you're going to have that conversation with Helmut and maybe maybe it goes somewhere yeah if he can come to some kind of understanding that would be wonderful I really like I know he he's for sure somebody that always you know had his own opinion on things and sometimes it's very direct and people like it and people don't like it but the more the sport is changing the more people start to see that there is a reason why we are trying to protect and preserve the the program and the dog training that we have how often do you have like what is it right now how long it's been it's more than a couple of years for sure right we started right around the time of the pandemic so we started that year and so things got off to a slow start we had just started out and then the pandemic hit and so we're just back moving forward

again are you planning like you have I mean I know because of Greg because you know one week is with you one week is here so I get a little bit but what do you have as far as what is the plan of like hosting nationals and how do you see it growing from here so we had a national event last year and we ended up with 57 entries which wow yeah which was way more than we anticipated so that went well we're having another nationals this year we do open it up to our BTs so because of our environmental testing people can come and do just the environmental test or the entire BT the behavioral and the environmental test together so we have that as part of our nationals and then we have our AS1s 2s 3s and then we have a protection tournament so we'll be doing it again this November and we'll just start we're going to just start advertising that now so what is the protection tournament strictly focusing on the protection aspect or what so it is but it's basically this year we're still talking about exactly all of the exercises that are going to be in it but it will encompass the important aspects of an AS3 title so what we're going to have is like last year was an attack out of the blind there was an escape bite there was a back transport I'm not sure all of the parts that we're going to have in it yet this year and then last year on top of the long bite and the call off there was a muzzle attack so this year there's going to be a couple of other things I believe I think there's going to be a carjack probably a muzzle attack again and those are bonus points so if you choose not to do those you can still enter the protection tournament but if you choose to do the extras they're bonus point exercises that you will be able to achieve extra points okay you have to have an AS1 to enter but if you have an AS1 you can enter in the protection tournament and there's money prizes and there is money prizes yes I I like that now since we are talking about carjacking scenarios and muzzle tell me I know that everything you collaborated with Jerry Bracho and the PSA group how did that grow how did that collaboration happen so we both had some common friends and we were put in touch with each other he was looking to expand his organization some we were looking to start this organization and so we contacted Jerry we got together and he welcomed us PSA has been fantastic to us so we are under their umbrella but we are our own entity so they kind of give us the framework we are part of their organization yet separate and that's how we maintain it even today so if you let's say for instance let's say you were going to get a scorebook you would be getting a scorebook PSA AS you'd have to sign up under PSA and AS and so a PSA member could come and enter for AS because we would have a scorebook that would be used where do you see it going are you or maybe not yet or never but are you looking into kind of making it

more of a one thing or still keeping because there's when you look at the program they're still radically different yes no we're planning on keeping it different we will remain a sleeve sport we will remain kind of true to that entity and they'll remain PSA the way they've done it before we're just like a subsidy of them yeah no I mean that that makes sense especially when you starting a club from scratch that's a huge task that's just huge huge we needed their infrastructure which they provided so they provided that infrastructure for us and it was then much easier to take off and go in our own direction because of their willingness to do that with us and as far as your judges how are you what like how would somebody become a judge well right now I am the director of judges and because we've been so small to date it's been once you've achieved recently it's been once you achieved an AS1 then if you wanted to become a judge you would contact me you would have to judge with another judge at first and right now you'd have to like if it was this year you'd have to attend this seminar that we are providing with Helmet and then if everything looked good and you had an understanding of our judging then you could become a judge going forward of course that will start to get it'll be more difficult you'll have to have more than just one time but in the beginning you have to start somewhere what about transitioning like an IGP judge right now well we have IGP judges so Carla Griffith is a judge she's an IGP judge we have people that have been in the sport so even if they hadn't had an AS1 when they started they all had IGP titles so like let's think of the protection when you have is it still 100 points or it's a different scoring it is 100 points so how did you divide like for level 3 how did you divide the points because you have a call out you have a few exercises that you have to balance out the points how did you break them down right so we looked at that and we just came up with breakdowns that made sense to us along the way if you so the crux of it is if you do a call off let's say and your dog bites at the end of the field just to interrupt you you know what I'm asking I'm like very seriously thinking of doing this with my dog you know I'll send you a copy of everything yeah and I'm not saying I'm not saying I will just stop IGP but I see that it will challenge my training as it used to you know so so I'm you know almost selfishly asking some questions here that I'm sure many other people want to know yeah we would love to have you but so that was the crux of that so because we felt it was so important with the call off if you send your dog and your dog actually bites at the end of the field then you fail let's say your dog gets almost to the helper but stops doesn't bite and comes back you're going to pass but you're just not going to get all of your points so like in protection again like thinking of ring sports you can have a dog

that doesn't like totally fails attack exercise but stays in the program and even can win the championship I'm assuming in your case if the dog is backed off or something it's dequeued or how does that go game over yeah game over okay Debbie I know you gotta go I feel bad for the boy there you need to take care of it it was a very good conversation and I'm glad to be able to talk to you I have your trophy when I won the USCI championship the big German shepherd head oh yeah good it's on my it's like on the center of my trophy so I always think of you I know I know and I got a at the time this one super fancy crate also the mesh portable ones right oh yeah so I'll be looking forward to we'll be talking more about the program and hopefully that conversation brings some interest to you and and you know I think it deserves the attention of serious dog trainers to at least get exposed to what you guys do I'm going to get some we'll put on the links everything and so people know how to catch up with you yeah that would be great and like where you were just heading with it just to be brief we really are trying to make our entire protection routine much more of a test for has been or the direction it's going right now so there's a lot of voice pressure there's stick hits there's pressure across the board people that were at the AS nationals last year had an opportunity to see that that that's what to me at least is attractive because when somebody says well no my dog is a very good dog well it cannot be very good dog unless it's tested properly under certain circumstances but maybe we do this one more time I think we have a lot more to talk about so thank you thank you for this one and and yeah I'm sure we're going to do this again Debbie all right thank you so much Ivan take Thank you.

Thank you.