076 Ring Readiness
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[00:00:00] If you train, compete, teach, or simply love the sport of dog agility, you're in the right place. Hey there, I'm Megan Foster, creator of Fostering Excellence and Agility. Join me as we explore training, communication, handling, mindset, and all the little details that help build stronger and more confident teams both in and out of the ring.
Whether you're just getting started or working toward big competition goals, this podcast is here to support your journey with your individual teammate. Let's get started
hey there. Welcome back to the podcast. Today on episode 76, I want to talk to you about ring readiness. Preparing a dog for competition is about preparing for all of the things that are different from your typical training situation. Often what I see is that people just don't actually know what those differences will be, so let's talk about [00:01:00] it
So this list is in no particular order. Preparing for these things is going to be more or less important depending on your dog, your life with your dog, their general adaptability, and probably a lot of other factors that I'm not thinking about at the moment. But for sure, we want to be thinking about the time of day you're doing agility.
A lot of the students that I work with, their weekly class is, you, in the evening or maybe it's in the morning at the beginning part of their day, or when they're training by themselves during the week. You know, it's very much catered around that family's schedule. But agility trials aren't catered around your schedule.
Oftentimes, you might be waking up earlier, having to eat breakfast earlier, [00:02:00] have to, you know, endure a car ride first thing in the morning, and r- and have several, eh, times that you're going into the agility ring throughout the day versus, you know, going to a class for an hour, kind of being on and focused for agility for 60 to 90 minutes versus having to be on at any moment throughout the day.
I know that I've worked with dogs that really kind of struggle to do agility when it's their typical daily nap time. And this probably goes deeper than I'm qualified to talk about, like, with blood sugar and, um, just their general metabolism and things like that, but it is something that we can think about and help prepare them for So when we are trying to work through this as a potential issue, I encourage students to [00:03:00] look at the trial schedule and try to pick one or two runs that do fall into a time period where the dog is more likely to be awake, be moving around, have more energy in general. So trying to potentially time meals around that could be a good solution.
Um, and we also want to practice waking up earlier, having breakfast earlier, going for a walk earlier so that we can be ready to go when we need to leave for the agility trial. The next thing on the list is the crating situation. In training, maybe you're primarily crated out of your car, maybe your dog can be right next to you for the entire class time, maybe they can just be in a down stay on their mat with you, or maybe they're crated next to you, or maybe they are used to being in a really quiet [00:04:00] room because class is generally more quiet than an agility trial If they've never been crated separated from you, you have to prepare them for this, and it is in your best interest to prepare them for it away from the agility trial so that that unnecessary stress isn't being baked into your trial experience.
Uh, I know that, like, my dogs don't spend a lot of times in crates in their daily lives. The main time that they are in a crate is when we're in the car going somewhere or at an agility trial. And so it is really important to me to build the skill of crating for agility competition. Otherwise, the only reason I would be, uh, need to teach my dog how to stay in a crate is for, like, emergency healthcare situations.
But because it is a necessity of agility trials, it is [00:05:00] really important. Um, so separation from you is at the top of the list. I encounter this working with clients as well, that their dog is actually experiencing separation anxiety when the handler moves away from the crating situation or leaves the car and leaves the dog alone.
The other thing is that if you live in an area where indoor crating is, again, a reality, a necessity, these are small spaces typically. There are a lot of other dogs crated together and near each other. There's a lot of movement around them. This can really be a lot more difficult for dogs to calm down, settle, and relax in and truly rest.
So again, when this is the reality, we really have to go the extra mile to teach our dogs how to go into the crate with a calm mindset, settle in, and truly rest even when there's a lot of chaos [00:06:00] going on around them. And also just going for the extra effort of making the crating situation super comfortable for them.
Really nice cozy bed at the right temperature for them, maybe some white noise to help block out some of the chaos, covering them so it's nice and dark when they go in, maybe even providing something to chew on. This, the, the ideas here are not meant to be exhaustive, but I do want to mention some potential solutions so that as you're listening and thinking about a potential training plan for your dog, you have some ideas to jump off of. The next one that might be different from training to trialing is waiting for your turn in line. In a class situation, there's usually not a super long wait. It's, you know the dog ahead of you is starting their turn. You know about how long it's [00:07:00] going to be. There's not, um, lots of other dogs waiting around in that sort of anticipatory, um, behavior, getting amped up, getting excited.
It's us- it's a lot more one-to-one. There might be one dog r- working in the ring. There might be one other dog also getting ready, but there's not this build-up and accumulation of feelings, and behaviors, and excitement, and stress. Um, there's also just not as many people gathered around, cheering and clapping.
So we need to think about, how can we show our dogs this situation before their first competition? Uh, remember that dogs in line will be engaging in their own pre- and post-run activities. Whether you approve of those activities or your dog approves of those activities, they will be happening. My personal rule for my [00:08:00] own dogs is that their behavior is not upsetting to someone else or impacting someone else's performance or day, but I don't hold everyone else to that same standard or value.
I just prepare my dogs for what is real. Dogs will be barking. Dogs will be tugging. Dogs will be chasing treats. All of this is normal and should be expected to be seen at agility trials. Um, also gate steward shouting out your dog's name and just general noise, especially when you're waiting in line. I work with a lot of dogs that this is an upsetting place to be, and we really have to work hard at making sure that the moments just before entering the ring are calm and anticipatory of good things rather than feeling overwhelmed and potentially afraid [00:09:00] Next thing that I work with a lot of the time is leaving your rewards behind, and I think many dogs understand that there are rewards outside of the ring that they will go to when they finish their run and they exit the ring, but they don't know for certain that no rewards will be taken into the ring.
But it doesn't take them very long to figure it out. So again, I work with a lot of clients on how to teach the dog when the food stops just before going into the ring, and that building the motivation for the rewards outside the ring is a possibility. So if you've never trained in a training situation with the rewards outside of the training space, number one, you have to know how your dog feels about that, and most dogs are not gonna be 100% okay with [00:10:00] that, and we have to take steps to prepare them for it so that trialing isn't the only situation that this shows up in, because that's how trialing becomes kind of a yucky place for dogs Next up is entering the ring while another dog finishes up.
This, whether we like it or not, has to be done. We cannot wait for every single dog to leave the ring before we come in. It will make our days too long. This is a kindness to our judges, and trial committee, and trial managers that are y- mostly volunteering, maybe getting some free entries, maybe making a few hundred dollars for, um, that very long day of work.
So it is a kindness and a show of respect to the organizers to make sure that you are able to enter a [00:11:00] ring while the dog is finishing up. The last couple of obstacles and they're getting leashed up, you should be able to come in and start getting ready for your turn. And it's definitely a deeper conversation, and something that I have experienced when I don't feel safe because of the dog ahead of me's, um, behavior in the past.
And that is real, and I am not saying put your dog in a dangerous situation. That is a much deeper conversation, um, for how to fix the culture moving forward, but this conversation is a part of that because ring readiness will make everyone more safe and more comfortable. So I have full programs uh, around being able to teach the skill of entering the ring with focus, with confidence, with enthusiasm, and without worry about what's going on probably close to 100 feet away from [00:12:00] you Next up is removing your leash and setting up.
This is maybe not s- obviously you take your leash off and you set the dog up in training, but it usually looks different than how it will go in a competition. M- w- 100% of the time there will not be food during your ring entry and setup in competition. So this is something that I notice when I attend competitions and I'm watching the novice level, is I kind of see some of the panic in the novice handlers because they're used to using food in this situation, and now they're not even able to cue things and move with their dog the way that they are used to.
And this is not their fault. They didn't know. No one told them to prepare for this. And so this is why this episode exists. And [00:13:00] not only do we not have our food on us, which is going to change the way you cue things, it's gonna change the way that you move with your dog, there are generally other dogs near the ring while you're trying to do this.
There is a timer and a scribe sitting at a table nearby. So these distractions paired with the lack of food kind of changing the motivation and the cue picture, this is where a lot of dogs go, "I don't know what to do here. I'm gonna go ask the scribe if they know what I should do." And then they start practicing disengagement, being distracted, things like that.
So we really wanna think about, hey, can we just do a training session or a handful of training sessions around getting into the ring, removing the leash, setting up with these distractions nearby, and doing it without [00:14:00] a cookie in your hand? Next on the list is running the entire course. Um, maybe you haven't done full courses yet in training, and you've, you know, started sequencing and your dog's getting really good at sequencing and you're starting to understand handling, but you haven't run a full course yet, which probably means you haven't run a full course with a judge present.
Maybe your instructor is out there, but they're, they are kind of quiet, they're hanging out in a corner, um, they don't move, they don't talk while you're running. They wait until you've collected the dog. These are all very good things, but they are not what you will experience in competition. Ring crew present might be different.
You're going to have, you know, five to seven people out in the ring, maybe sitting, maybe standing, maybe moving your leash runner, leash from [00:15:00] one side of the ring to the next. Uh, maybe there's people walking around the edges of the ring, moving from one part of the facility to the next. There will be people and dogs ringside watching your run, cheering and clapping and enjoying watching you work with your dog.
Um, there might be an entire next ring or two or three or four running nearby. If your dog's never seen a two-ring sort of situation where another dog might also be engaging in agility or moving off leash Seeing that for the first time at a trial, um, makes me a little bit more anxious than I'm willing to do.
Um, so every- everyone can choose their own adventure, but we owe them the kindness of showing them what could be, I believe. Um, think about [00:16:00] leashing up and exiting the ring. What does that look like in training for you versus what it will look like in competition? There are cheering, clapping, another dog is coming in on the other side of the ring behind you.
Um, again, this is something that we have to be comfortable with if we are going to engage in off-leash activities with our dogs. So think about how can we start preparing our dogs for these realities. Um, and then getting to the rewards and cooling down with the same conditions as waiting to go. So you might be thinking, "Okay, finally, we got through the run.
We've done all this." Well, now we have to get out of the ring. We have to get to our rewards, and we h- still have to navigate a lot of chaos, which could be close quarters with other teams doing the exact same thing, right? Think about the communal [00:17:00] cookie table that a lot of facilities have where everyone puts their post-run rewards on it.
So there could be three to five teams getting their cookies and kinda rewarding their dog in the same space. You know, you have to navigate getting your cookies and getting the heck out of there so that you can reward your dog in a less chaotic s- place, I've talked a lot in previous episodes about s- more specifics on preparing for these differences, and I will certainly link those in the show notes. I've also tried to share those episodes in the last few weeks as repeats while my life has just been too chaotic to record a new episode. But if you've been listening for a while, you know that I do not like surprises, and also I find it to be a kindness and a responsibility that we go in [00:18:00] prepared.
That if I do know what's going to happen and I choose to not prepare my teammate for that, that's not cool. It's not fair, and for a lot of dogs, it is how they learn that trialing is difficult or uncomfortable, and it takes them a lot to recover from that, unfortunately. So entering a trial just to see how things go is not usually the answer for me.
If you haven't done specific ring prep training around that list that we just went through or tried to split the trial environment down for your dog, you don't need to enter a trial to be told what you should be working on. You have more work that you can do in order to be more prepared. If you have done some ring prep work and you're pretty confident what your dog will [00:19:00] look like in all of the situations above, then go ahead and enter a trial.
Enter one day. Enter one or two runs. Get some data. Check your hypothesis. Were you correct about how your dog can handle all of these things, or did you learn that you actually have some more work to do? Then start making some choices A, a lot of the people that come to me, they find me kind of they, they've...
Maybe they're in novice or open or some of them have skyrocketed into the higher levels of competition. But n- now the issues are starting to be really noticeable. The problems that started in those first few trials are now too big to manage. They are now causing problems that are now a barrier to the team [00:20:00] progressing, and we can avoid that.
So some things that we can do to avoid this is obviously we want to prepare them, and now we have a pretty good list of things that we can prepare them for. We can dig in to the differences. If you are brand new to agility and you are thinking about entering a competition and you haven't visited a competition, please go do that.
You don't have to take your dog. They can have a nice time at home, or you can plan to take them and just have a shorter day, one to two hours maximum. But go and see what it's like. Observe these differences for yourself so that you aren't surprised when all of this happens. Lowering the amount of surprises in general will lower your anxiety.
You will be more confident because you know what to expect. And when you know what to expect, [00:21:00] you can be a better leader for your teammate When you enter a trial, like I said, enter one day, enter a couple of classes. Look at the trial schedule and try to choose a couple of classes that are closer together in the day so that you can have a shorter time at the trial than being there for the first class of the day and the last class of the day.
Work up to that When you do enter a trial, try to give yourself time before you enter the next one so that if things are not at all what you expected and you do have a lot of work to do, you can give yourself time to address those things and then collect some more data at the next trial. Also, just when we increase the mental and physical load, um, on ourselves and on our dogs, we need to give ourselves time to [00:22:00] kind of come back and refill our emotional cup before we just throw ourselves into another competition again.
And especially when we're first starting out, we may need more decompression on the back of a competition than we will two years into the road when it's a little bit easier and a little less stressful
My whole goal is that you can go into a competition knowing what to expect, feeling confident, knowing how to lead your dog through this experience, and having an experience that is more similar to that that you have in training. It will be more enjoyable this way, I promise. So my action item for you is to assess this list that I talked about with you in the beginning of this episode.
What part of competition [00:23:00] kind of makes you feel uneasy? What aren't you sure about when it comes to your dog's behavior? Write that down, and let's make a training plan for it. And if you aren't sure what that training plan should look like, come on in to the Fans of FX Agility community. It's completely free.
There will be a post about this episode. You can share what's making you feel uneasy about competition, and we can discuss what your next steps should be.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to leave a review, share it with an agility friend, or connect with me on social media. Your support helps more handlers and teams find the podcast and be part of this community. You can also find all of my training programs, coaching, and resources at fxagility.com.
Remember, excellent agility is built one training session at a time, and every small step forward matters. Until next time, happy training
