E447: 애슐리 에스코바르(Ashley Escobar) - "컨포메이션 다시 보기"

things that you can do to enhance your dog's features and attributes and bring out their best right so we can take a dog that might be a little soft in their top line for example if you were to look at your dog standing and their back has a very subtle dip in it that dog would be a little soft in their top line or maybe they're a little soft in their rear in a balanced stand so there are certain exercises that we can do where we can condition the dogs to build the muscles in those targeted areas to create a dog that no longer has a soft top line or no longer has a soft rear same thing with their chest and just their muscular structure there are certain exercises we can do to tighten up certain areas of their body so that when they move in one of their gated patterns we can help alleviate a little bit of leg movement like left or right when we want to see just a straight tracking for a dog for that breed there's also things that you do as the handler some dogs look better moving fast and some dogs look better moving slow everything is moved at a trot in the show ring but there are different speeds of a trot so some of my dogs look best with a very slow and steady trot on a down and back but on their side gate a very fast trot so that you can really show that they have the reach and the drive for their breed so there's lots of components of showing your dog that you have to know how to bring out all of their best there are times that you could just take a brand new person and take a dog and put them in the ring and it might just all the pieces fall into place but that's probably going to be few and far between because there's really a lot of intentional placement of feet and a lot of intentional leash pressure and types of leashes that you use and the types of brushes that you use if you have a dog that has coat and products and so much preparation that goes into presenting your dog for a I hate the word beauty pageant for this but a lot of it is because you are really trying to minimize flaws and non breed standard traits in your dog and bring forward and highlight all of the true breed standard traits that your dog does possess for people who maybe have never read a breed standard and this wasn't on my list of prepped questions for you but can you just give us an idea like what types of things we're talking about so like you know the things that come to mind for me are like okay we've got some specifications maybe you're on movement around head shape it goes so breed standard for akc and this is actually a lot of fun if you've never done it you

can take your breed and type it in google and ask for the akc breed standard for the belgian malinois or the australian shepherd and it's going to give you the american kennel club version of what that breed should look like and what certain personality they should possess in the ring too because all of those things like come full circle when they go into the judge's ring for example australian shepherds they are not what's considered a head breed but they are supposed to have button ears they can have rose-shaped ears they they cannot have prick ears right their ears cannot stand up like a border collie um does that make or break them it might to some judges some judges really like the way that the head shape looks um australian shepherds are supposed to have almond shaped eyes so does the dog have almond shaped eyes or are they more round are they very small they're supposed to have 42 teeth in their mouth when you go to show the bite are they missing teeth like you have to know all of these things about your dog like knowing your dog's flaws is just as important as knowing all of the attributes and traits that they possess that are matched within breed standard but some of the other things for breed standard are going to be how the dog moves do they have a lot of reach and drive on their side gate or do they move with a lot of animation with their front feet do they have a flat top line or are they supposed to have a flat top line are they supposed to have more of a roached back and arched back like a whippet breed or a sight hound tail set how is the tail set on the dog is it set a little high is it set a little low do we have more of a steep croup so there's lots of angles and angulation and anatomy that goes into your breed standard and every breed is typically within somewhere earshot of the breed standard right like there really is no perfect dog but how close to that breed standard can the dog be presented in that moment right because again there's things that we can do to help bring our dog's best paw forward when we take them in the ring can you talk a little more about the handler role in the ring the handler role is really important um i get a lot of people that are often afraid to take their own dog in the ring because they feel like it has to be a professional handler and i will tell you i've always handled my own dogs my kids handle their own dogs in the ring like it 100 does not have to be a professional handler but you do have to know certain things you do have to know again your breed standard very well you need to understand what

tools leash and collar are going to make your dog move their best when they're in the ring so again the dog is judged on gating in a couple of manners they're judged on a group around the ring where the judge is looking at their side profile their side movement their side gate so they're wanting to see reach and drive and every breed is going to have a different variation of how much reach and drive they should have they're also then going to look at the dog one-on-one for their exam and part of that exam includes watching the dog trot away and then trot back to the judge so the handler plays a really big role because can the handler move the dog in a straight line that is way harder than it sounds teaching people to move their dog in a straight line so many times i have people that will in in-person confirmation classes and it's like okay we're going to do our down and back take your dog down to the corner and then come back and they line themselves up perfectly for me like i'm like your gate is beautiful like i could not see anything about your dog right so being able to control your nerves and you know because it's such a short amount of time i mean literally just like a minute you get of that judge's undivided attention and there's little things that you can do that can help you kind of stand out a little bit more and make sure that the judge is really getting a good look at your dog in the ring instead of just doing the bare minimum when it comes to show because you literally are showing your dog like so you have to have a certain amount of showmanship when you go into the ring for your dog what do you mean by showmanship in that in that instance i think that the way that you present your dog and making eye contact with the judge and just having some unspoken interaction with the judge matters because it gets the judge to give you a second look so if i'm moving my dog around the ring i am definitely going to be looking back at the judge at different checkpoints as we're moving around i will never just take my dog around the ring and never look back at the judge you feel when someone looks at you and it there's it will bring them back to your direction it lets them know that you're paying attention to them like they might point and call you out of the group and if you're not paying attention then you're going to miss that number one and number two you're like hey like my dog is the best dog here like get bring bring your eyes back over here to this dog that i'm showing i mean so you have to have a little bit of of showmanship when you go in there into the ring

okay so we talked a little bit about um the idea of some conditioning outside the ring so how can working on you know balance and stance and that's of awareness outside of the competition ring actually help the dog perform better in the ring i think it is a game changer between being in the ribbons and just donating points to the rest of the competitors um to be very honest it matters if your dog is in shape um it it really does because you can do all of the fancy grooming with a double coated breed for example and you could have two dogs next to each other two australian shepherds and they're both groomed to the nines like they both look like they've got really strong muscular top lines they've got a nice strong stable rear they're very balanced nice amount of bone like almost two identical dogs and then you go to put your hands on the dog and when you go to go over the top line of the dog you know dog a kind of shifts their weight a little bit not not in an uncomfortable manner but just their kind of balance is now being questioned as you start putting a little pressure and move weight shifting their body a little bit they're unable to hold that stand or you get in there and you feel well the layback of shoulders on this dog is not really set in an ideal position this dog has a little more of a straight front end when really we should have a little more angulation to match the rear or we feel poor muscle anatomy on the dog as we go through and then you come over to dog b that really you know in the big picture profile wise looks exactly like dog a but on dog b it's like wow like this dog has a really nice layback of shoulder it complements the bend of stifle and this dog is very well muscled and did not move a millimeter when i went over it not because it's trained to just be stagnantly still but because the dog possesses the ability to stand in a balanced square stand and maintain their even distribution of weight during that exam that is a really strong solid dog that would hold up all day in field work dog a is going to need breaks it's not going to be able to cut it like we're going to have some laying down we're going to have some checking out of work like they're just not physically going to be up for herding sheep all day long right because these are herding dogs so we have to think about what the dogs were bred for as part of their breed standard as well and make sure that they are physically fit for that i think that's an interesting point that i think often doesn't get you know kind

of talked about much just the fact that you know the idea of being able to do what they were originally bred for is probably part of that and should be kind of thought through you know just like it it should really be looked at more and i did a i did a webinar a few months ago and it was on a class of labs like we were discussing the anatomy of the labs and all it was a group of juniors and all of the labs looked very similar but there were two labs in the group that did not have the big paddle tails and they are supposed to have these big broad at the base paddle tails like they're swimmers right so the one junior said well i'm just i wouldn't pick those two because they have skinny tails like she knew it had something to do everything else about these dogs was they were so such a matched group but it was the tail for both of them and a lot of the kids missed that but these two these one two juniors in particular they were like their tails are skinny so they just look funny like they didn't really understand all of the why but they were like piecing the dog together and looking at the breed standard and so it like registered to them so i think it's really important that whatever whatever your breed is that you show that you really understand what they were bred for and especially when we get into these working dogs and herding dogs like they were bred to do a physically demanding job so they really should be conditioned for it even if they never see sheep they should be conditioned to be able to go out there and physically hold up all day yeah there's so much to that like the the paddle tail example i think it just it can take a lot of work to really kind of train your eye and teach your eye how to notice those types of things right that like and then not to just to notice them to be able to you know you see the thing and you're like there's something about that and being able to actually tell you verbalize like what it is so do you have any tips for kind of improving the handler's eye when it comes to confirmation i think first and foremost of course the breed standard you have to know it inside and out exactly what it is that the dogs are supposed to look like and then you have to put your hands on the dog like looking at them like i said because there's so many tricks that can be done with hair and product and so forth and in akc you're allowed to put product on your dog you know it's not frowned upon and sculpting with scissors and you know fixing their hair the way that it should be um

but being able to put your hands on the dog and really feel and assess where the dog's layback of shoulder is and really feel where their their front arm right is it shorter you know do they have an anatomically balanced front end and rear end like do they have a ton of layback of shoulder and they have a very straight rear that's a dog that's not going to hold up as well as a dog that had a straight front and a straight rear right like we would rather see just symmetrical balance than we would to see these really drastic front end rear end um pieced together on dogs so really being able just to feel the core parts on the dog and identify muscular strength and structure on dogs for when they're just at a stand right because it does take a lot of energy just to stand there balanced with good posture these show dogs um it's it's hard i tell people all the time i'm like can you imagine like you just go you you move at a trot or a very brisk walk and then stop and stand with good posture like don't move you can't be fidgeting you can't be moving your feet you just stop and you know shoulders back abs in head up arms down you're just in really good posture like it takes a lot to do um and that's what we're asking of the dogs in the show ring so there's a lot of conditioning that should be going into our show dogs for that yeah i think maybe you know kind of the classic way in confirmation is to have like some sort of a breed mentor or at least a mentor you know in the sport as a whole um and that's how a lot of people at least i think kind of get into it right do you have any tips for how folks they're interested in learning more about confirmation can maybe find somebody local to them who might be willing to meet them at a show or have some conversations and kind of mentor them a little bit yeah absolutely if you purchased your dog from a breeder and your breeder is maybe involved in showing they would be the first point of contact that i would recommend and if not you could look up any akc has an event finder and you can look up events near you and find a confirmation event and just go and find the breed walk you know walk around they have every breed represented you can go to the rings and sit ringside and someone will talk to you someone will help educate you people love to talk about their dogs so somebody will be more than happy to kind of point you in the right direction especially if you're like breed shopping like right that's i tell everyone go to a show find the breed that you are really in love with and really learn about it like

learn about what they were bred to do learn about what they are supposed to look like and there's tons of like trial chairs and just people involved in putting on these big shows they're very helpful and akc i want to say that they even have a confirmation mentorship link now on their website i thought i just saw something there it might have been at royal canaan it might be something that's rolling out i know we talked about it at one of the meetings we had down in orlando at the big event every december but there's just there's events everywhere there's confirmation shows everywhere so it's such a good opportunity just to go meet new people and mingle with some dog people and learn some stuff what's the best way if you already have a dog that you're kind of doing this with or you're kind of a newbie but you're you're playing with some of this stuff to get really good honest feedback about your own dog's kind of strengths and weaknesses if you can find a handling class that's near you or find something online from someone again your breeder would be my first point of contact um to really and the breeder themselves should be able to give you a very good honest overview of your dog's structure for the breed ring um obviously not every dog is champion material right for showing in the confirmation ring so being able to have someone give you that really honest feedback on your dog and knowing your dog's weaknesses it's huge like that's the first thing that i'm looking at when i breed and raise dogs and grow them up for potential showing like i want to see where they're weak and see how that changes the trajectory as i grow them up and if it's something that i'm going to be able to deal with if i did want to keep this dog in my breeding program for example and then breed them later on um or are their weaknesses something that is would be detrimental to the breed standard and they would not be eligible to show and compete in that manner so we're talking about this stuff because you've got a class on it in february do you want to share a little more about the class maybe you might want to sign up yes so the class is all about teaching new people or people that maybe their dog is new to the confirmation breed ring and it is laced with conditioning exercises specifically for the confirmation dog so we do go into getting the handler's ring ready too because again i'm a huge encourager and supporter of owner handler and so i want the humans to feel empowered and have the knowledge which i think knowledge is power to take their dog in the ring and present their dog in the

best best manner possible for confirmation showing even if it's just a b match and something fun that's not going to count i want people to have that experience with their dog the exercises conditioning exercises that i have picked for confirmation dogs are pretty standard for what would be required of your what i'm going to just say everyday dog that is getting ready to go into the confirmation ring right like we don't have any we're not really competing in sports so we're not like let's for say looking to tighten up turns or have faster takeoff speed right like we're looking for a just a general honest maintenance type conditioning program for this dog that's going to focus on their front core and rear and give them the ability to train them all throughout this to have a free stack and to be able to be hand stacked and hold that balance stand while the judge goes over them for the exam and so forth so it's kind of a lot of content packed into one class here but we have a lot of fun that's awesome anything else um on the calendar right now you want to mention um i have my build a custom conditioning plan for your performance dog so difference than the confirmation class obviously because this is going to be for dogs where we're really wanting to tighten up lines or increase speed or have just longevity and injury prevention and we go through and take base exercises and then for the working spots we build on those base exercises so that we can customize them to that dog's needs and sport specifically and i'm pretty excited about the new silver pilot program that's been rolled out because there's so many fun things that we get to work with now with the silver folks so that's pretty cool yeah it's nice being able to actually uh see what they're working on a little more and get some more regular check-ins there for sure yeah i'm excited anything i'm kind of either front that you want to leave folks with um as we wrap up here last minute key minute points i if you think that confirmation might be something that you're just interested in learning more for it's a it's an experience right it's not something where people i think sometimes people have this misconception that they have to go to westminster right like they have to just go all out and do all the things it's really a lot of fun and it can be a lot of fun for your dogs too and such a great chance to bond build with your dog and just get this nice working rapport with your dog i have a lot of dogs that go from low engagement and working in their sport and folks then are like i'm

just going to work on their confirmation stuff now and then they do all of the things and it's like all of a sudden now this dog is super engaged in work so i there's a lot of connection there with building that rapport with your dog getting the engagement and getting the work history with your dog with something that is not high impact high arousal sport type stuff um again we have a lot of fun with teaching them the different things in confirmation and it's also on the flip side it gives you a phenomenal stand for exam for the obedience ring just saying all of my confirmation dogs go on to compete in obedience because we have that box checked and double checked i can go to the end of a 25 foot lead and have the dog just show as i call it and the dog is going to stand there in this beautiful free stack stand and the judge can come and go over the dog for days so the layering over of sports that you get from confirmation i think it's overlooked sometimes by the flashy clothes and the little leashes and stuff but it's a great way to build a positive cer for the ring man it really is because you get to use bait in the confirmation ring so the show dogs are like man i got this i'm about to get a piece of bacon or a piece of chicken here and then by the time you get over to obedience they're like i'm getting paid at some point i'm getting paid for this big time so it's really really a lot of fun to watch it come full circle with that couldn't agree more all right well thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk about this ashley i really appreciate it all right and thanks to all our listeners for tuning in we'll be back next week don't miss it if you haven't already subscribe to our podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available today's show is brought to you by the fenzy dog sports academy special thanks to denise fenzy for supporting this podcast music provided royalty free by bensound.com the track featured here is called body audio editing provided by chris lang thanks again for tuning in and happy training you