E31: 바바라 커리어(Barbara Currier) - "어질리티 핸들링"

she was constantly coming up lame. I decided since she didn't particularly love it and I didn't want to keep injuring her, that I would just find something else that she liked better. So one of the things that she's always loved is swimming. So I decided to try dock diving with her, and that is truly her love. We don't need to have cheese or any type of treat within a 50-mile radius, and she will happily do her dock diving all day long. So that's been really fun. I have another border collie. I have a border collie, a brazen. I have two border collies. Brazen is the oldest of the two by a few months. She's eight years old. I got her from a breeder in Virginia when she was eight weeks old. Unfortunately, she has a lot of health problems, so she has not really been able to do any type of sport. She has some minor brain damage. The best way to describe her is basically she's autistic. She doesn't deal well with any types of changes in her environment. She tends to be a self-mutilator. So when anything changes, like my neighbor parks his truck in a different part of his driveway, she'll rip the hair out of her body. So we've gotten that under control. It was really bad when she was a puppy, but we've gotten it under control. But she doesn't handle any types of change as well. So she's happiest when she can just be at home on the property. So we let her just do that. She also has a very severe case of border collie collapse. So she passes out whenever she has any type of hard exercise, even just playing Frisbee. So we have to kind of keep that managed, too. So unfortunately, she never really got to do any type of performance. But she's happy being at home and chilling and getting out and playing. We have five acres completely fenced, so she gets plenty of room to run around. So that's kind of what she does. Blitz is my other border collie. He is also eight. I adopted him from Bimmer's Border Collie Rescue in Virginia when he was 10 months old. He just recently retired from agility due to at seven, he tore a psoas and we rehabbed that for a year. And then when he came back, he was found for about two months and then he injured his flexor tendon. And I felt like we were having progressive injuries and that was not the way I wanted him to be in his later years. I wanted him to be able to enjoy life and do all the things that he loved to do without constant rehabbing. So I made the decision to retire him from agility about three months ago. It just seemed like that was the thing that kept injuring him, but everything else in life wasn't. So it just seemed like the right choice. And he's loving retirement.

He's doing dock diving now. He's also my service dog. I am hypoglycemic. And he actually detects it about 30 minutes before I even know anything's going to happen. And if I eat, then I don't have any episodes. So he is kind of my other half and he's just amazing. And then my youngest is Niso. She is a miniature poodle. She's three years old. And I got her from a breeder in Florida when she was eight weeks. I had actually waited for 10 years to get a puppy from her lines. And she was worth every year I waited because she has been perfect since the moment she came home. She's been competing for about a year and a half now in agility. And in her first year of competing, she actually qualified for AKC Nationals. And she's actually the seventh ranking dog in the 12-inch division in the country. And she's already been to two World Team Tryouts and won round one of the SEI World Team Tryouts. She's already qualified for her second AKC Nationals. She's qualified for USDA Asino Sport. And she is one double Q away from her mock. And at this point, she's only been trialing a year and a half. And I actually only trial about once a month because I am so busy. So she is pretty remarkable. Wow. That's impressive. Yeah. She's a super impressive little girl. So she's been really, really fun. And we have a new puppy coming in the fall, hopefully. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Yeah. It's all good. Yeah. So how did you originally get started in all of this in dog training and agility? I mentioned a little bit kind of in the bio, I think 2004, right? So what kind of kicked things off? Well, in the late 90s, I adopted a nine-month-old Chihuahua named Cabal from Chihuahua Rescue. And he was my first dog as an adult. You know, we had dogs growing up, but he was my very first dog. And at the time, I was a technician at a veterinarian hospital. And one of the technicians that I worked with there, she bred and trained Belgian Tavirans and competed them in obedience and tracking. And so she started working with me on training dogs and training for obedience and tracking. And I started kind of assisting with her and learning kind of the trade. And during our training, we discovered that Cabal had a chemical imbalance, which made him sort of a challenge to train. So I'm kind of obsessive in anything I do. And I have to learn everything I can and be the best at everything I can. And so I became obsessive on learning about behavior training and how everything I could do to make him have the happiest, most well-rounded, stable life, which we were quite successful at.

He went on to compete in agility, and he did obedience and karting and climbed mountains all over the White Mountains in New Hampshire and taught me so much about dog training. And he really is what opened up the whole world of dog sports for me. So what got you started kind of training positively? Was it that way from the beginning? Or kind of what got you started on that part of your journey? Well, again, it kind of stemmed back to Cabal. When I started training him, it was kind of the old-school method of the collar corrections. And there was always this nagging in the back of my head of, you know, I'm collar correcting a six-pound chihuahua. There's got to be a better way. And my background is in equestrian show jumping, and I trained horses for many years. And I was never a harsh physical trainer with my horses either. And I feel like training dogs and training horses is not entirely different. And so agility and show jumping are not a lot different in the way things need to be trained, except agility is far less dangerous than show jumping, so that's always fun. So I've always kind of wanted to have a bond with my animals and train my animals through trust and mutual respect. And I don't want our relationship built out of fear and pain. So that was when I started looking into, you know, there's got to be more positive ways that I can train this dog without having to collar correct and do those types of physical corrections. How would you describe your training philosophy these days? I really like for my dogs to think of training as lots of games. So, again, I want my relationship to be with them a partnership that's based completely on trust. And so I want them to understand that, you know, if they get something wrong, not to shut down. Like that, you know, a mistake is just, that didn't work, try something else, you know. And so to them, it's just a big puzzle that they're trying to figure out. And so, you know, they never have a fear of I'm going to be angry or, you know, they're going to get hurt in any way. It's just a big game and it's a puzzle they're trying to figure out with lots of reward throughout it. So, you know, every time I bring them out for any type of training, they just are all thinking that it's the most wonderful thing in the world. And that's how I think it should be with any animal that you're training. So I have to say, kind of working on your bio, it seems like you've had the opportunity to do lots of different, really interesting things in the world of dogs, from animal wrangling to working on wearable computing.

So I wanted to ask a little more about what you do now. Can you tell us just a little bit about the FIDO program there at Georgia Tech and what you're working on with the dogs there? Sure. So FIDO stands for Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations. My best friend, Dr. Melody Jackson, she's a professor there at Georgia Tech, and she runs the Brain Lab and the Animal Computer Interaction Lab. And she came up with the idea of creating wearable computing for service dogs, military dogs, police, search and rescue, any type of working dog. And she asked me to come on to oversee the dog training aspects of the work. And within the last year, I've been really busy with travel, and so I actually haven't been working a lot with them on the project. And she's actually taken over most of the dog training aspect, the pilot testing with her dogs. But up to this point, a lot of the stuff that they have created, it's kind of funny when I tell people what I do there, that the team that creates all the stuff, it's Melody Jackson and her lab partner, Thad Sarner, they're brilliant people. And the students that all work there are super brilliant. I am not a techie person. I'm lucky if I can turn my computer on. I just train dogs. So I kind of compare it to like the Big Bang Theory, and I'm Penny amongst all these brilliant people. And they just say stuff, and I'm like, that's great. Just tell me what you want the dogs to do. That's kind of where my expertise is, and I don't have any idea what the technical aspect of it is. But we've actually created some really cool things. They've created a vest that a service dog is trained to activate that has a tug sensor on it. And so we had a woman come to us that had a speech problem where she doesn't have, she can't project her voice out very loudly. And she's also wheelchair bound. And she was at the dog park one day with her dog, and her wheelchair got stuck in some mud. And she couldn't holler to anybody because her voice just didn't project like that. And she really needed like a way that she could get, to send her service dog to get help to come back. And, you know, but a dog running up to somebody at a dog park barking, nobody's going to think that's anything unusual. So they created a vest that has a computer on it. And the dog has a tug sensor on the vest. And so they can, she can direct the dog to go to somebody. And the dog can go up and it will pull a tug sensor. And the vest will actually say, excuse me, my handler needs assistance. Please follow me. And then the dog can bring the person back to the handler. That's pretty cool. Um, yeah, it's super cool.

Um, so my dog Blitz, uh, Blitz and my Border Collie Blitz and Melody's Border Collie Sky are the two main test subjects for all of the stuff that we create. We have a few other dogs, um, that we use consistently, but most of these things, like we just bring in random people and their dogs to trade everything. But Sky and Blitz kind of go through everything first and we work all the bugs out on them. Um, they've created a hepatic body suit that allows handlers to communicate with SAR dogs from a distance. So for instance, if a SAR dog is looking for, um, a child with Down syndrome or autism, where, um, they may be afraid of dogs or, um, you know, they, so a lot of times the SAR dogs will work at a very far distance from the handlers and they don't want the dogs to scare the person into running more. Um, so the SAR dogs can have like a camera on their vest and they, so when they find whatever they're looking for, we have a computer that's on their vest that they can, um, activate their GPS. So it sends out exactly where their location is, but then the owner can give the dog commands through this hepatic vest. It has vibrating sensors in different parts of the dog's bodies. So they can, and each sensor vibrating on a certain part of the body means something. So like when the sensor vibrates on the back, that means lie down. So the handler can then vibrate the back sensor that tells the dog to lie down and stay, but the handler could be, um, you know, 20, 30, 40 feet away. So that's been really fun to work with that. Um, we've taught dogs how to use large touch screens. So for, uh, like hearing dogs in the house, a lot of times they don't wear vests. And so when a hearing dog hears something, they just go to their handler and they need to take them to the source of the sound. But sometimes we don't want them to take them to the source of the sound like a tornado siren or a fire alarm. So we've created a large touch screen that the dogs can differentiate the sounds and they can actually go to the touch screen and detect fire alarm and hit that. And like if the handler's wearing something that's called Google glass, it will show up in the Google glass with the fire alarms going off or the doorbell's ringing and maybe the handler just doesn't want to get up and answer it. Um, so the dog can actually differentiate the sounds and tell them by using a, it's like a giant iPad, exactly what, um, sensor is going off. Interesting. So, yeah, it's been really fun to watch the dogs be able to do all of these amazing things.

And it's been really fun to watch the students say, do you think a dog can do this? And I'm like, sure they can. And they do. I mean, it's just amazing what dogs can do. So what about your experience animal wrangling? Do you want to share a little bit about that work? Yeah, um, I don't do it anymore. It's honestly not as glamorous as it sounds. Some of it's fun. Some of it, not so much. Um, it depends on, you know, the, the set you're working on, like the TV series satisfaction was super fun to work on. The people were really great. Um, that was with my friend's dog. Um, the, the producers were really great. And, but like the movies aren't always so fun to work on because the days are really, really long. And a lot of these people have no idea what it means to train animals. And so they kind of think that they're little computers and you can just program in whatever you want and just change it on the fly. And the dog should just automatically know how to do it. And it just can be a little frustrating sometimes. And so, um, I did it for about two years and got burned out pretty quickly. Aw. Fair enough. Now, I know that, um, can I mention in the bio a little bit about Susan Garrett? And I know that you have been able to work with a lot of different excellent handlers in the agility world. So I wanted to ask a little bit about how those, how working with those professionals has experienced and shaped your training. Well, I have been lucky to work with some of the most amazing dog trainers in the world. And I have to say, I've learned something from every trainer I've ever worked with. Um, I'm a firm believer that there's always somebody out there that can teach us something. And the day that we feel that people don't know more than we do, then our education stops. And so I, for one, always want to keep learning and evolving in my dog training. So even if I go and I take away one thing from a weekend seminar, well, that's one thing that I didn't have going into it. So to me, it's, it's just worth it. For those not familiar with, uh, one mind dog handling specifically, do you mind just briefly kind of explaining what it is? Sure. The one mind dog handling, it's a handling method that's based on how dogs naturally respond to our physical cues and what works best from the dog's perspective. So it basically teaches us to speak the dog's language instead of trying to force dogs to understand us. So a lot of the handling comes very, very natural to the dogs and takes little to no training. It's mostly just training the humans, uh, to, to learn how to speak the dog.

But the dogs right from the beginning really understand it quite well. And I love when I'm working with a student and I tell them to do something and they're like, I don't think my dog's going to do that. And I say, if you do this, they will. And then the dogs do. And they're like, wow, I didn't know my dog could do that. So the real question is who's harder to train the students or the dogs? Always the students. The dogs are easy. What was it that, uh, kind of originally attracted you to, uh, OMD? Well, Blitz was four years old when I got introduced to one mind. Um, and I was really struggling with Blitz and I was having a very hard time. Um, our Q rate was extremely low. So he was a very, very fast dog. He was very obstacle focused. Um, and I just was really, really struggling with him. And I had never had a dog that I struggled that hard with. I've always, um, been a very successful agility handler. And I was just really starting to doubt myself. And then, um, I start, I was introduced, I went to a seminar and was introduced into the one mind system. Um, and immediately it was like Blitz was saying, Oh, thank you. Finally, somebody's going to help her. And it kind of just like came into place. And, and after one seminar, I went to a child that weekend and where, where we hadn't queued in months. I think we came home with, with four queues in one weekend, which was unheard of for us. And that was after one seminar. So then I was really hooked. Um, and then, um, Yako and Yanita, who are the founders of one mind, they did a tour in the United States, um, a few years back. And my school, they asked to come to my school. And so we hosted them and they ended up staying with us. We, they host, we hosted them for a weekend. And then, um, they had like three weeks off between our place and where they were going next. And so we said, why don't you just stay here and we'll show you around Georgia and take you hiking. And, and so they stayed and insisted on working with us every day to thank us for our hospitality. And so having three weeks of pure immersion into the one mind system, I was completely hooked. And the difference that it made in blitz was just out of control. And Miso, um, is the first dog I've ever had that was trained from day one from, with the one mind handling system. And the difference in her skill level going out to start competing and the difference than any dog I've ever had has been night and day. And so I just was hooked line and sinker sucked in. So I want to talk a little bit about the class you have coming up that kind of includes some of those handling methods.

So it's called making it easy. 12 commonly used, uh, one mind dog inspired techniques. Can you just share a little bit about what you'll cover in that class? Sure. So the one mind handling system has 30 different handling techniques. And, um, for the average person who does AKC, USDA, you're not going to use all 30 handling techniques. Um, you'll use a lot more as you start getting into the international type handling. But this course will cover the 12 most commonly used techniques that people are going to use weekend to weekend at their local trials. So what are some of the, I guess, the common sticking points for handlers looking to teach those skills? How do you problem solve for some of those issues? Basically, um, one of the things that I see handlers struggle with the most is maintaining connection with their dogs while looking where they need to be going. So, uh, dogs seek out connection with our face when we're running. And if they can't find that connection with our face, depending on the dogs, they can have different reactions. Uh, some dogs will just stop running to the obstacles and just try to drive around and curl in front of you to search for your face. Some will start dropping bars. Some will just find a line and take it. So if we're, if we're, and we're, and we're not connected with our dogs, we also can't see whether they're committing to the correct obstacles and when we need to execute their turn signals. But our body wants us to, through self-preservation, look where we're going. So the hardest thing for, for students is to learn how to run forward with your head looking back and being connected with your dog and seeing where you're going out of your peripheral vision. So I teach my students to basically go out and get used to running a course while looking behind you and using your peripheral vision because everybody has it. But again, it's, it's kind of a brain training thing that the more you use it, the stronger it gets. When I first started doing it, I, I kind of saw blurry objects in my peripheral, but I was never comfortable to run a whole course that way. Or the more I went out and just practiced running a course without my dog and the stronger my peripheral vision got. So I can run full courses now and not worry about running into things while staying strongly connected with my dog. So that's probably the thing that I see most people struggle with in my little games that I've created to help that seems to really help them with that.

Do you want to talk just maybe a little more about which of the one mind dog handling techniques are kind of included in your class? I know you said the 12 most commonly used ones, but, but what are some of those? So on, in the first week, we, we're going to start off with the most common handling technique that everybody knows. Um, but a lot of people actually execute incorrectly, which is the front cross. Um, so everybody probably knows that, but it's also one of the most commonly misused and done incorrectly. So we're tackling that right off the bat. And then we'll move into the fourth front cross. Then into week two, we address the Yako turn and the reverse spin. So for somebody not agility, like savvy, what, what is that? The Yako turn? So the Yako turn kind of takes the place of the traditional post turn. So in the traditional post turn, as we're rotating around, our chest laser is opened up to all of these obstacles that we don't want our dog to take. So as we're rotating our dog saying, is it that obstacle? Is it that obstacle? Is it that obstacle? And it's not until we actually get to where we want to go that we say, no, no, it's this one. Where the Yako turn, we get the collection at the jump. But the dog actually goes around behind our back. So our chest never opens up to all the obstacles we don't want. It's only going to be driving straight to the one obstacle we do want. So it's a really good technique for dogs that are super obstacle focused and really like to scope out lines on their own. And then the next technique we'll tackle in week two is the reverse spin, which is basically it sort of looks like a Yako, but it doesn't get you quite as tight collection as a Yako. Your exit line is different, but it's a really good handling move to use if you say your dog is on a pinwheel and you want the first and the third jump, but not the second jump out on the pinwheel. If you, by doing a reverse spin, you're going to change the dog's exit line. And so, and it's going to create collection for the dog. So you will not get that jump out on their natural path because you've created a turn with more collection. Kind of hard to explain without looking at a map. Yeah, but still. And then in week three, we're going to look at the reverse wrap, which is a tight turn off of the backside of a jump and rear cross, which is another one that most everybody is familiar with, but often done incorrectly. Week four, we will look at a lap turn, which is a U-shaped turn that the dog's turn happens on the flat.

And I use lap turns so often in pulling my dog to, if we're on a course and the course is sending the dog to the tunnel, but the judge has nicely picked the offside tunnel for the opening. Lap turns work so great for that. I also often lap turn my dog into weave poles on AKC courses. So that's a great one. And then we're going to move into the double lap, which is a lap turn to a front cross and creates a very tight O-shaped turn on a wing for a dog. Week five, we'll look at the whiskey turn, which is a very shallow rear cross. And we are going to work on the blind cross, which I think is one of the most fantastic moves ever for so many people, especially people that have knee issues because you don't have to deal with rotation and it keeps you going forward on the line. But there are appropriate places to put blind crosses and places where a front cross would be a better choice that not a lot of people understand. And then week six, we'll work on the German turn, which is, it's a backside, a little hard to explain. It's a backside, almost like to a serpentine into a blind cross. And that's a really fun one to do. And I actually use that one quite a bit in premier courses and kind of the tournament classes and the USDA classes. And then the tandem turn, which is a turn away from the handler for the dog on the flat. And those are, that's a really good turn to have if you are on a straightaway and you're having trouble getting down in front of your dog to do a turn. A tandem turn is a really, really handy move to have, especially when it's a straight line to a backside and you just know you're not beating your dog down that line. So it sounds like you're definitely going to cover kind of the how to do all of these things. Are you also talking a little bit about when to use each of them in the course? Yes. So the course will be broken down to step-by-step how to train on one jump. And then I'm giving them short sequences of three to eight obstacles where they're going to see where this could fit into a course. Is there anything else you think the students who are kind of trying to decide their classes, because this will go up during October registration still. Anything else that students should maybe know if they're considering the class? Well, I think it's important that, you know, and I put in there the prerequisite for Loretta's class, because this isn't going to be the class where you are going to learn how to sequence one or two obstacles. Like the dogs coming in should know how to do, you know, at least eight obstacles in a row, just meaning jumps in a tunnel.

So as long as they have a firm understanding of that. And I would assume that coming in, they know what a front cross is and they know what a rear cross is. Beyond that, the other ones are all, you know, not ones that I would expect them to know coming in. Some people may know them, but the other stuff. But I would kind of hope that everybody knows what a front cross and a rear cross is. Since those are the basics and everything kind of builds off of those. Okay. Excellent. We're getting close to kind of the end here. So I want to ask you the three questions that I always ask at the end of an interview. The first one, and I think some of my guests would say this is probably the hardest question, but what is the dog related accomplishment that you are proudest of? You know, I am probably proudest of my school, party of two. I have a really large student base here in Georgia, and I am so lucky to have the best students. They are just the greatest group of people, and they always want to push themselves to be better. And I throw the craziest stuff at them. And if I find a comfort level, I'm always looking how to push people out of it. And they are always willing to rise to the challenge, and they are so supportive of each other. We're like a big giant family, and everybody's always willing to help anyone out. And I just love it. I'm just, I'm super proud of all of my students at my school. Excellent. And what is the best piece of training advice that you've ever heard? Oh, that's easy. Comparison is the thief of joy, is the best training advice I've ever had. And I remind myself that often. So to basically not compare yourself to other dog trainers, your dog to other dogs, your dog to your dog's litter mate, or your friend's dog, or your trainer's dog, because then it overshadows any progress or triumphs that you've made because you're always comparing it to somebody else, and it never feels like enough. And then our last one here is, who is someone else in the dog world that you look up to? That's a tough one. I'm not sure I can only pick one. Jeez. I've had the longest training relationship with my mentor and coach, Tracy Sklenar. She's been my coach for over 10 years. But since I've become involved with One Mind, Jen Tinder and Mary Ellen Berry have been instrumental in my progression in mastering the One Mind handling system. So I would have to say it would be those three amazing, talented ladies that are at the top of my list. Fair enough. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Barbara. This has been great. Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed myself. Good.

And thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Loretta Mueller to talk about managing a multi-dog household. As someone who just brought home dog number two, I'm looking forward to talking about skills we can learn and teach our dogs to make life go a little smoother. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. 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 BenZone.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang and transcription written by CLK Transcription Services. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training. Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music