Summary:

Nancy Gagliardi Little has been training dogs since the early 1980s, when she put an OTCH on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, and multiple championships in herding and agility.

Next Episode: 

To be released 10/19/2018, an interview with Sara Brueske on bringing an adult dog and/or rescue into your household as a sports prospect.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods.

Today we have Nancy Gagliardi Little back on the podcast. Nancy has been training dogs since the early 1980s, when she put an OTCH on her Novice A dog, a Labrador Retriever. Since then she has put many advanced obedience titles on her dogs, and multiple championships in herding and agility.

Welcome back to the podcast, Nancy!

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Thanks Melissa. It’s great to be here.

Melissa Breau: To start us out, can you just remind listeners a little bit about who you are and who the dogs are that you share your life with?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: I’m Nancy Little and I live in Minnesota. I train in obedience and agility, but I’m competing most in agility.

We have four Border Collies in the house and a Toller. The Toller is my husband’s dog. He’s a 3-year-old dog named Rugby. My dogs are all spanned out from 14 years to 10 months of age.

Score is my oldest. He’s retired, obviously, he’s 14 years old. I trialed him in herding and agility. He has his herding … actually he’s very, very close to finishing his herding championship, but I never did finish it. And he has MACH …  I don’t remember how many, I think it was a MACH 2. Schema is my 10-and-a-half-year-old Border Collie, and I’m just blessed that she’s still trialing. She’s still trialing in agility, and she has a MACH 2, a PACH, which is a Preferred Agility Championship, and an ADCH from USDAA. Like I said, she’s running in Preferred. She is qualified for AKC Nationals. This is the sixth year, I think, that she’s qualified, which is amazing. I’m really proud of her accomplishments this past year.

Like I say, I’m just blessed that she’s still running. She’s 10-and-a-half years old. She had an injury this year. She was out for three months with a bit of a back strain. She still ended up being the Number 3 Preferred Border Collie in the AKC Invitational rankings, which I had no plan on. I’m not doing anything in terms of Invitational rankings, because with Border Collies it’s just ridiculous. But I got notified that she was the Number 3 Preferred dog, which is amazing since she was out for three months. She’s just very consistent and she’s very fast.

She also, for all breeds, there’s another ranking system called the Power 60, which is done by Bad Dog Agility for the year ending in … I guess it was the second quarter. She was the Number 1 All Breed in the 16-inch Preferred. Of course she, in June, brought me back into obedience for a little bit. Our agility club that I was on the trial committee was also hosting, besides an agility trial, we used to have a two-ring agility trial, and we put on an obedience trial as well. She’s trained in obedience, and I brought her out for the first time in Beginner Novice, and that was kind of fun to get two legs.

Melissa Breau: That’s awesome.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: It was fun to finish that off. Then there’s Lever. He’s 5. He just qualified for the first time for AKC Agility Nationals and he’s working on his MACH in AKC. Then I have my youngest, her name is Pose. She’s Lever’s daughter and she’s 10 months old.

So that’s my group. I have a lot of fun with all of them for different reasons.

Melissa Breau: It’s neat because you’ve got a wide range of skills and ages and can do lots of different stuff. I’d imagine training day at your house is probably quite the mix of things.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: It is, because I still want to work … Score goes out with me and trains. He’s around when I’m training all the time. He just kind of hangs out. It gets him exercise and he enjoys being out with the other dogs. He provides a great distraction because he’s always trying to get in close to me.

Melissa Breau: Since you have a young dog, what are you focusing on with her right now? What do you hope to achieve long-term?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Well, I love agility obviously a lot, so my goals are going to be, or hopefully will be, that we compete in agility. But I plan on training her in obedience and herding as well, and time will tell what I decide to do in those areas. But I absolutely love puppy training, so I’m enjoying this time with her.

She’s learning lots of very important skills right now. I’m lucky that she’s able to come to work with me when I teach at the training school. Also when I’m at competition, she comes with me. She goes everywhere with me. She’s learned to be relaxed and quiet. I keep her in an X-pen when I’m teaching.

Also when I’m competing with Lever and Schema, she’s crated, and she’s learning how to exist among all the chaos at the agility trials and when I’m teaching. She hears my voice and she’s super quiet. So I’m really proud of how she’s adjusted to that. She acclimates nicely when she’s crated at the trials. I really like that. She’s one of the best dogs I’ve had coming up in terms of being able to relax and chill.

What she’s learning — there’s nothing really big right now. She’s 10 months old and I feel like she doesn’t know anything, but yet she does know a lot. I’ve focused a lot on toy games, tugging games, some personal play she’s really good at, and food games. We do that in different environments, and I’ve got a lot of opportunities around the school to be able to train around other dogs, also including my own dogs, which are quite the distraction for her because it gets her arousal up and some competitiveness, which is always good. So we work on things like that.

I like to move her back and forth between high-arousal and low-arousal behaviors, because that’s an issue with Border Collies is that a lot of times they get that high arousal and they can’t mentally function, so just getting her to shift around from being pretty high to thinking things through has been fun. She’s done really well. She can make that shift really well.

In terms of the foundation stuff I’m working on, event markers, do a lot of stuff with that, stationing, just to make sure that I have a place to start and stop and think about things, and then I also work my startlines from stations. I start that initial work, pivots, targeting, wraps around wings or cones, and the beginning of two on, two off.

This is funny — I listened to Shade’s podcast, and she was talking about her puppy and the sit, and it’s like, “Oh, that’s exactly what’s going on with Pose.” I just recently started working her on her sit because I didn’t really like the way she was sitting. She was growing fast and her rear feet were all over the place. I mean, she would sit, but she’s so bendy and all over the place that I was like, “Well, I don’t think we’re going to do this right now.”

I just started working on it now, and she’s really tightened up everything. It’s interesting how many people ask puppies to sit, and she just looks at them like, “What? I don’t know what that means.” So it’s surprising for them to learn that she doesn’t know how to sit. That’s the big thing we just started working on now, because I wanted to start working on her startline and her different positions — sit and down and those kinds of things.

Melissa Breau: You’re talking a little bit about startlines in there. Have you started working on startlines with her yet?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Yes, she does have the beginning of a startline. The sit is not really something that I need before I start working on the beginning of a startline, and as we talk through here, you’ll see that most of it is just for her learning what the release cue is, and you can do that from any position. So she’s actually got a fairly decent and I’ll still call it beginning of a startline, so I’m happy with that.

Melissa Breau: I saw a question pop up in one of the Fenzi Facebook groups the other day where a competitor mentioned her dog’s startline had eroded and she was starting to retrain it. What are some of the early signs that a dog’s startline may be beginning to or about to fall apart?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: What happens is most people watch for the dog’s feet or body movement as mistakes. By doing that, you’re missing the early signs that there’s issues. So in terms of getting early signs that the startline is about to fall apart, I think it’s more important to pay attention to facial expressions and what’s going on emotionally: what is she looking at, how is she processing, how is she evaluating what’s in front of her, how is she really seeing toys as reinforcement for whatever is happening there, and then just paying attention to how she’s appearing and how she’s responding, I know whether the startline is confident and stable.

Those are the early signs, and I don’t think people pay attention to that, that look on the dog’s face of “Huh?” or something’s bothering them, their head dips, there’s lip licking, ears are back, the kind of facial expression that tells you that something’s happening, That’s in the context of the startline, and once that starts happening, you’re going to start to see more movement. So it’s kind of a head issue, a mental issue, it’s just checking their emotional state.

Melissa Breau: If somebody does catch it early, or they start to see some of the signs start to creep in, what is the best way to re-establish that strong startline that hopefully they had at one point?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: If they had a really good startline and are catching it early, then there’s some things to keep in mind. When there’s mistakes, like I said previously, the focus should be first on the dog’s emotions, because a confident, happy dog is much more likely to be able to understand what’s being asked. It’s also going to make the trainer more aware of frustration or confusion coming from the dog, focusing on that emotional state. Like I said previously, the trainers are relying on the dog’s body movement as an indicator of an issue, and that is always too late, in my opinion. So that’s the most important step in re-establishing or maintaining a startline.

The second thing would be teach a reliable release. The release cue is truly the easiest way to get a reliable startline stay. Training a strong release cue. In the world of agility, there’s so much information for the dog to process because of the atmosphere and the energy in the sport. For a dog to have a well-trained startline, the handler needs to eliminate all these extra prompts and movements that are associated with, and they also predict the release cue. Many dogs are breaking the startline because they’re frustrated, or they’re anxious or confused because the actual release cue is different than the handler is intending it to be.

The other thing that can happen is the dog just can’t predict when the release cue will be given. There’s all kinds of extra motion, and they’re back there watching the handler and getting all twitchy because they’re not sure when they’re going to turn and give the release. Training a reliable release is another one of the big ones.

The third one is — this is another issue, too, that I’m kind of surprised at — is startline behaviors that the dog has, or what you have to train. Make sure that the dog is trained so that they understand the criteria and the dog is in control of it. A big issue is when handlers attempt to control the stay. They physically place the dog into position, or they’re repeating the stay cue over and over, verbal … I’ll say threats like, “You stay, you stay,” or “Hey,” things like that, as the handler leaves.

Another thing is facing the dog. As the handler is moving away, they’re facing the dog.

All of these behaviors, these are behaviors by the handler. They’re all controlling behaviors, and it’s a sure way to create a frustrated and confused dog. Those are eventually going to break down any trained behaviors, because dogs want to be in control and they like being in control. The funny thing is, I hear this a lot, is that handlers will label their dogs as pushy or naughty, and usually it’s the handler’s fault for not training the behavior so that the dog offers it and maintains it on their own without the handler intervening.

The very last thing that is important is handler connection. The dogs do much better with startlines when the handler leads out and is super connected with their dog. Some dogs don’t have issues with a lack of connection with the handler, but lots of times the startline issues are resolved when the handler learns how to lead out and continues to stay connected with the dog.

So those are four areas that I keep in mind when there’s mistakes, and those are based on if the dog had a strong startline previously. That way, when some of these things are caught early, it’s really easy to fix.

Melissa Breau: I’d imagine, though, that sometimes figuring out what it is, or breaking it down, can be hard, especially if a dog doesn’t maintain their stay and you are getting some movement, and then you let them run anyway, that’s reinforcing that behavior, assuming the dog likes agility, which I think is probably a safe assumption for our audience. And if you don’t let them run, you’re increasing frustration, which might further erode the stay and have other fallout. So can you talk about that a bit, how you handle problems if they do pop up? And maybe what some of the pros and cons are of the options that competitors have in that situation?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: You’re right. Every time the dog leaves before the release cue, that behavior gets stronger, and as you said, dogs love doing agility, and so it’s a really strong reinforcement to go and to run. So there’s lots of strong behavior chains that are unintentionally built into the startline routine as the dog starts a set of unwanted behaviors. Those behaviors continue to be reinforced as the handler moves forward in that routine until the dog’s running the course. So problem-solving startlines are kind of complex and they depend on the history of the issue, the dog, and the handler.

The cool thing and the reason why I like this so much, this stuff, is there’s never a simple, cookie-cutter approach. But obviously the best scenario is catching it early and not allowing it to occur at the trials. Once it continues at the trials, you get a long history of that behavior, it’s a little more difficult, but you can still fix them. So I like to help handlers develop a plan for their particular situation, and they vary a lot. It would involve a training plan, handling plan or changes, and how to handle mistakes. Those are big ones because every dog is different. It’s going to vary a lot between teams.

Regarding the pros and cons, that’s going to vary a lot also, depending on the situation. For instance, there can be both pros and cons leaving the ring if you actually remove a dog. Say if the dog breaks a startline, and you remove the dog or you leave the ring. Some dogs have built up such a strong reinforcement history for going before the release cue that leaving the course without running will eventually get rid of that behavior, and it’s sometimes the best way to do that. It’s also important, when you do that, that you’re not adding any more emotional baggage, that you just leave happy, because those dogs want to run, so even when the handler leaves happy and even reinforces the dog, or rewards the dog, and exits, it’s still going to positively affect that dog’s ability to focus on the release cue in the future, because that’s really what they want to do.

But then there’s other dogs that are more sensitive to mistakes, and then if you remove those dogs from the course when a mistake happens, it’s going to cause a lot more anxiety and frustration. So in that situation I’m going to probably suggest running the dog, and then evaluating the training and handling plan to ensure success, because those dogs care a lot about being right, so something probably was amiss in training or handling.

Melissa Breau: Let’s say, looking at it from the opposite angle, somebody has a strong startline now, and they realize that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Is simply reinforcing that stay by continuing to release the dog to play agility — is that going to be enough to maintain that behavior? Are there other things they should they be doing to maintain that behavior?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Once the dog has a lot of value for agility obstacles, and a good understanding of handling, and has a well-trained startline, then yes, I strongly believe that releasing that dog from the stay at the startline will reinforce that startline. Most dogs love agility, and they want to go, and they’re much more reinforced by going forward than having the handler return to reward them.

So strong startline behaviors, they can deteriorate a lot, and I’ve seen that happen when the dogs, all they want to do, they want to go, and the handler wants to reinforce that or wants to reward that, and the behavior is interrupted by the handler returning to reward. So I really feel that if they have a strong, solid startline and they like agility, they like to play agility, then releasing them forward is a great reinforcer.

Melissa Breau: I want to get into — you talked about this a little bit — the emotional component of startlines for a minute. If a dog is breaking their stay, what is that really saying about their emotional state? How does that play into that bigger game of agility?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: I believe this is the area, like I said before, that most trainers miss — that emotional component. It’s about recognizing the expressions or behaviors that indicate the dog is frustrated or anxious and confused.  

When they miss that, they continue on the same path in their working skills, attempting to address mistakes, and what happens is that the dog’s stress level continues to increase because they’re feeling all these emotions, And as you know, when the dog is stressed, they can be over-aroused, or they can be even under-aroused, and they can’t think or function anymore, and then any of the skills that were taught are going to deteriorate, and there’s going to be bad feelings at that startline.

So when there’s a negative emotional issue at the startline, once they go, that’s carried into the performance once the dog starts running. So yeah, it’s a big deal.

Melissa Breau: I’d love to talk a little bit about proofing and lead-outs. With the variety of all the different course layouts out there, and all the different options when it comes to course layouts, there’s so many different pictures that the dog has when working on their startline or when they need to maintain their startline. Do handlers … is it really just about training as many of those “pictures” as you can, or is there a better way to help a dog generalize an awesome startline to understand that no matter what obstacle or no matter what layout they see, that it’s still the same behavior?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: That’s a really good question, and it might be another thing that is missed a lot. I’m pretty proud of my dogs’ lead-outs, because they’re fast and it’s always such an advantage to start out running a course being fairly far ahead, so I have some pretty nice lead-outs on my dogs.

Part of it is practicing all different types of patterns. The first step is to teach them to be able to jump. Most of the startlines are either tunnels or jumps, and I practice a lot of slice jumping, so that the dogs can take a lead-out, but still take a jump at a sliced angle. Even though I’m very much in the picture, they’ll still take the line that I set, and that gives me a lot of options. Basically, you’re going to lead them at a jump at a slice, they might be facing the jump at sideways while you’ve led out.

Most people, what they’ll do is they’ll face their dog straight ahead toward the jump, and then they’re at a disadvantage because the dog doesn’t really see Obstacle 1 and 2. If I can put my dog on a slice, then he or she can see Jumps 1 and 2, or Obstacles 1 and 2, and it’s an advantage for me to be able to get out a little bit further, because Jumps 1 and 2 are taken care of. So I do a lot of complicated patterns, mostly with jumps, but then I’ll add some tunnels as well in there. Because tunnels are super arousing. So those patterns are really important.

The other thing I’ll work on is long lead-outs. There’s many times it’s a jump to a contact, you jump, dog walk or jump, weave, can you lead way out and way past the beginning of the contact, maybe to the end, and can your dog do that pattern. So patterns are very important, and as long as you’re consistent about the dog’s line and supporting the line, they should be able to handle that.

But the other part of that question is that I’m going to also add lots of distractions to startlines because there are distractions at the trials. One way I do that is I’ll use other dogs, or people, or just set it up in a variety of environments, and then what I’ll do is I’ll execute a startline routine, which means just come into the ring, do my setup, lead out, and release, so that’s just basically … not really necessarily running a sequence. I’ll do that starting, like, with dogs maybe standing still at a distance, or then the dog is moving a little bit at a distance, or the dog is running sequences at a distance.

The other thing is you add people, because there’s people at trials. They’re everywhere. They’re behind the dog at the startline, getting ready to take the leash, they’re sitting in chairs, sometimes they’re moving to set bars. You just start adding movement, decreasing distance, having a leash runner behind the dog. These are all external distractions. You don’t want to just have them happen once the dog starts trialing. You want the dog to be introduced to those things because they are a big part of the startline, and can the dog focus while those distractions are there, can the dog execute that startline routine.

The other distraction I like to add is handler distractions, like, can you hold your stay while I’m disconnected, if I’m a super disconnected handler or a super over-excited handler, or I might pair some movement with a few releases, and then I go back to a clear cue release. They’re just some fun games to ensure that the dog understands the whole startline routine that I’ve set up.

Melissa Breau: Of course, we’re talking about startlines because your class on the topic is running this term — so anything that we didn’t get into that might be useful for students to know, if they’re considering the class?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Lots of people ask about what type of dogs are best for this type of class. It’s one of my favorite subjects, so I love doing it because of the variety and creativity. But it’s great for young dogs because the class is basically building that startline behavior, and then also working with handlers so that things are going to be maintained properly.

It’s good for dogs learning startline behaviors and it’s also good for dogs that are having issues with their understanding of it at trials. I’m working with the handlers to ensure they’re giving clear information to their dogs, because lots of times they’re not aware that some of that is actually causing the issues. Once they see that, it becomes clear. I help the handlers individually changing their behavior. And then, as I mentioned previously, there’s different strategies to change the dog’s behavior, too, and it’s going to vary with all the different types of dogs.

The question, too, people have about taking it at the Bronze level, which you can’t really ask questions. You’re just going to be watching the Gold students and looking at the lectures. I’m really good about explaining to people why I’m giving certain advice for a certain dog, because I realize there are going to be Bronze students out there that are going to be wondering, Is that something I should do with my dog? I want them to understand that this is in particular what I would do with this type of dog.

With this particular class, because it started — today is October 1st, so it just started — I do have a very interesting class. There’s a lot of variety in it. There’s some dogs that actually need a little more speed, and then there’s the other typical, lightning-fast dogs that just require a lead-out in the class. So there’s something for everyone.

Melissa Breau: That’s awesome. I want to change topics a little bit. I know you have your open and utility problem-solving class on the calendar for December, so I just want to chat a little bit about obedience. What are some of the common problem areas when teams are competing at that level — places where the teams just seem to struggle?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: For some reason, the most popular exercises seem to be signals and directed jumping, and specifically go-outs in utility. There’s a lot of that. In open it’s usually a variety of issues, lots of heeling, fronts, finishes, drop on recall, that’s more of a variety of things. But signals and directed jumping are really, really, really popular exercises to work on. That’s where people seem to struggle.

Melissa Breau: It’s one of those classes where I’m sure you see the same couple of issues or common issues come up, the same exercises pop up over and over and over again, right?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: It does, but interesting enough, there’s always a little bit of a difference between each of the teams because of the dog, or specifically what the issue is in each of the areas.

Melissa Breau: Once a handler has identified signals or go-outs or one particular exercise as the sticking point for their particular dog, what’s involved in developing a plan for taking and saying, “OK, this is a problem. How do we improve our dog’s understanding of this exercise so that we can get it right?”

Nancy Gagliardi Little: The first thing is figuring out where is the issue within the exercise. Lots of times it’s a little bit different than what might have been explained or noted by the handler. Lots of times they’re dead-on, but I might find a little detail that I think is probably going to be important to work on first. Then we find a plan together to address that particular issue, and then I try to get it so that we build that piece back into the exercise, and that’s assuming that the rest of the exercise is healthy.

Making sure that the handling is in place too — that’s super important for all of the obedience exercises is to make sure that the handling is consistent and the dog is not confused. It’s not like I’m proposing certain handling of all exercises, because I’m going to work with whatever they have, and if the dog is confused, then we need to make a change.

So depending on the problem, it might be teaching different skills, it might be working on handling, there’s other things too. We create a plan then to move forward. It’s much bigger than that. That’s a pretty simplified version.

Melissa Breau: Well, there’s only so much you can do if it’s a six-week class to try to explain in a podcast.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Exactly.

Melissa Breau: Would it be helpful to talk through an example? So maybe take one exercise and talk us through an example of a previous dog or a previous issue?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Sure. For example, utility signals seems to be a big thing. Say somebody comes in and they have issues with signals. After I look at the video, I’m going to probably first review the handler signals without the dog, to ensure that they look clear to me and they look different.

I’m really picky about signals. I like them to start differently. The sooner the dog knows what that signal is going to be, the faster the response from the dog. If they have to wait until the signal is complete before they recognize a cue, then obviously the signal is going to be … or the response from the dog is going to be super slow.

So then I’m going to develop a plan for handling, maybe make some … I’m not going to change everything, just the parts that I think are unclear, and usually the dog’s telling us that anyway. So I look at the dog’s response.

I’m going to probably have them do verbal position changes and take a look at those, and see how the dog’s responding to the verbal cues, making sure that there’s no additional prompting occurring from the handler. If the dog can’t respond to the verbal, then I’m going to probably work on that first, rather than the signal, because signals can be a little more complicated.

So get that going first, and then we also have to incorporate a good reinforcement strategy for that dog so that we can maintain that distance from the handler. And then gradually, as things improve, we build a distance with the verbal cues, and then I’m going to start to add the signals in with shorter distance, gradually increase that distance.

Also, some of this I’m using props to help the dog, depending on the situation. Some dogs don’t need it; they’re doing just fine. Some might need it.

The other big thing for me for signals is making sure we’re reinforcing the duration in each of the positions, that it’s not just about changing positions.

So there’s a lot of different things to consider and a lot of different tangents that we can go on.

Melissa Breau: Certainly makes it easy to see why it’s a sticking point. Lots of different pieces.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Right, right, right. There’s a lot of stuff going on. And the thing, too, about signals is it’s difficult for the dog too. I think one of the reasons why it can be so difficult is they’re heeling and they’re with the handler, and then all of a sudden there’s this transition to this distance work, so I think that’s really hard for some dogs, especially the Utility A dogs, or the new dogs that are trialing.

Melissa Breau: Alright Nancy, I’ve got one last question here, and it’s the question I’m asking everyone now when they come on: What’s a lesson you’ve learned or been reminded of recently when it comes to dog training?

Nancy Gagliardi Little: All of the podcasts I’m like, “Oh my God, I don’t know how I would answer that question, because there’s so much.” There’s so much stuff out there. But all of a sudden, when I got this question, it was like, bam, I knew exactly what I was going to say. And it might be a bit different, but I attended an event a few weeks ago, it was honoring my dad, and I was reminded of something that’s important in training dogs and life in general.

He coached college football pretty successfully for 60 years, over 60 years, and he’s actually the winningest college football coach of all time. He did things unconventionally then, and it’s actually unconventional now, even. He made changes in his own program that built kindness and respect in a pretty violent sport. I think I even talked a little bit about this in the original podcast that I did with you, where he had no hitting or blocking in practice — and that was way back in the late ’50s — because he noticed that some of his best players weren’t playing in the games because they’d get hurt during practice. So instinctively it felt right to not hit in practice.

That was 50 years ahead of the game. These are actually practices now that are being looked at and incorporated in some of the pro teams and big college programs today. They’re just looking at that. But he trusted his instincts and he didn’t allow any of the distractions of how things are supposed to be done to guide his decisions.

This has kind of always been my thing is I think it’s really important for all of us to focus on what we believe in and to trust our instincts, because if something feels wrong, then don’t do it. If something feels right, do it. Don’t over-analyze why you should or shouldn’t do something. Trust your feelings.

I don’t think we really trust our feelings enough. It might be different than what somebody else is doing, but that’s how new ideas are discovered. So you can still make detailed plans, you can still obsess about those plans, and execute those plans, and evaluate the results, and develop more plans based on the results, but be aware of your feelings as you train, and trust them, because if you’re feeling frustrated or there’s negative emotions, then something is wrong, and if you’re feeling great, then keep going, you’re on the right track.

I firmly believe that emotions are going to guide you in the right direction, so trust them, and don’t be distracted with what your friends on Facebook are doing. Stay aware of those feelings. They can help you stay on track and move in the right direction, and you might discover something incredibly wonderful and different.

Melissa Breau: Right. I like that. I like that a lot. Thank you so much Nancy! This has been great.

Nancy Gagliardi Little: Thanks! It’s been great being here.

Melissa Breau: And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with Sara Brueske to talk about evaluating potential rescues for dog sports, fostering potential sports dogs, and more.

Don’t miss it! It if you haven’t already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available.

CREDITS:

Today’s show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called “Buddy.” Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!