Clean Run - June 2013 - 44

She competed on the World Team seven times
with two diﬀerent dogs and is experienced with
international competition in Europe. “So when I was between
dogs, it was a natural time to help with the team.”

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& Power Up!
Improve
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traveling, she takes advantage of those
places that lend themselves well to hiking and running, and is often able to ﬁt a
half-hour walk in a few times a day during trials. “I do most of my exercising of
the dogs off leash.”
At a competition she may add biking to
the mix, riding with them for about a
mile as a warm-up, then walking for the
last ﬁve or six minutes before going into
the ring. At that point she may or may
not even make use of the practice jump.”
If there is a hard turn, something very
speciﬁc that I want to pattern the dog for,
I may do that on the practice jump.”
She is not quite as disciplined when it
comes to her own exercising. She tries to
be “religious” about doing two miles on
the treadmill every morning, but doesn’t
always do much more. “I am hit or miss.
I sometimes train more intensely for a
few weeks then take a break, though I
still hike every day in the ﬁelds. I am
best at keeping ﬁt leading up to national
or international events when my goals
help keep me on track.”

Coaching

Decrease
•Recovery time
•Lactic acid build-up

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44

A big part of Nancy’s time is spent with
the AKC World Team, which she has
coached for the past seven years. She
competed on the World Team seven
times with two different dogs and is experienced with international competition
in Europe. “So when I was between dogs,
it was a natural time to help with the
team.” The job involves a lot of management, organizing, working with judges,
arranging team tryouts, and developing

plans for training and exercising. Much
of it is based on her own experience in
both competition and teaching. “I watch
people all day long and have developed
a pretty good eye. For me, coaching is
helping people stay inside their own handling system and to assist them when it
is going wrong.” She, by the way, mostly
follows the Derrett system of handling.
The programs that she develops for team
members are similar to her own training and teaching, and vice versa. “There
is nothing that I would ask any of the
team members do that I wouldn’t do
myself. All the courses I ask the team to
run as well as the work I ask them to do,
I am duplicating at home with my dogs.”
Among her students are a number of international competitors and she is often
training with handlers who have been on
or are currently on a world team. “I have
ended up doing a lot of international work
with my own dogs over the last eight
years because I am asking the team to do
that work.” She reaps the beneﬁt of that
international work as well, taking Ace to
the European Open ﬁve times. She earned
a Bronze individual medal in 2010 and
a third place in the team competition in
2011. To date she is the only American
handler to medal at the European Open.
Her day-to-day instruction goes in that
direction as well. “I would never ask a
student to do something that I haven’t
taught a dog to do or couldn’t do at that
moment. I work hard to stay competitive,
to stay current with what is going on, to
teach my dogs to do those things, and to see
where the training challenges are.” D

Sally Silverman is a freelance writer whose life has gone to the dogs. She and her husband share their
hearts and their home with three Australian Shepherds. An avid agility competitor, Sally is working on MACH3 with Bounce, who also has a PDCH, as well as many canine freestyle and herding
titles. Baby sister Java is now in AKC Excellent and working on her Intermediate freestyle title. Sally is
an active member of Y2K9s Dog Sports Club outside of Philadelphia, where she trains and teaches.
Clean Run | June 13

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Clean Run - June 2013

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