Clean Run - October 2019 - 5

Who Do You Want to Be?
By Brenna Fender

When I started agility, I was in my early 20s, and I got into
the sport via an unruly black, hairy dog who tested every
rule and my patience as I tried to "make" her behave like the
rest of the dogs in the obedience classes. I joined my local
dog training club and offered to assist in a puppy class. I was
paired with a skilled dog trainer who had been teaching the
puppy class for quite some time. I admired her well-trained
dogs (Norwegian Elkhounds!), her calm demeanor, and the
way she was so good with both the puppies and their owners. I can remember many after-class chats that I thoroughly
enjoyed and in which I learned all sorts of things. When she
left, I took over the class and tried my best to fill her shoes.
It turned out that I had lucked into learning from someone
who has continued to have a long career in dog training and
an influential role in agility, judge Cindy Deak, who has written many great articles for Clean Run as well.
Later, in the mid-to-late 90s, when agility was taking the
dog world by storm, the pre-social media era made it hard
for those of us in Florida to keep up with developments in
the sport. At trials, I was constantly seeing new sequences
and trying to figure out how to handle them while walking
the course.
Thankfully, I frequently saw Pati and Stuart Mah at trials.
Although I barely knew them, I sometimes joined the evergrowing group of handlers who followed Pati around the
course while she showed people the best ways to handle
the challenges. Most of us weren't her students and weren't
paying for her services, but she was kind and helpful. And
I always made sure to watch Pati and Lily (her amazing
Malinois) run because I so admired their smooth style and
nearly flawless performances, and I learned from watching
them as well.
At some of those same agility trials where Pati was so helpful,
I heard grumblings from a few competitors. They were hoping that Pati and Stuart's dogs would NQ. I am not sure why,
although I could make some guesses. These folks seemed
fairly grumpy, so I avoided them.

Social media has taught me that there are many people who
are negative, who hang on to perceived wrongs, and who
miss out on a lot of good things because of this focus. Even
in daily life, I see the people who hold their hurts and anger
close to their hearts and deepen their own pain so much that
it pours out on the people around them. These people are often the ones who keep track of the times they gave and didn't
receive, the times they were generous and not appreciated
for it, the times they were wronged by a person, a training
center, an agility organization, and so on, and they dwell on
those experiences. That's not a recipe for happiness.
But with social media's echo chamber, people who are very
negative get a lot of reinforcement for that, and lots of people seem to adopt others' negative experiences as their own.
Even that mentality of being hypercritical and super-snarky
is catching as people copy the cool cats in agility who share
not positives, but negatives. Some people are so good at
this that they share what sounds like a positive post about
something, but their word choice and tone are clearly insulting all the things that aren't that particular something.
Clever, but cutting.
It's October, which culminates in Halloween, a costume-filled
holiday where we can be whomever we want to be. But guess
what? You can be whomever you want to be any day of the
week. While I'm always an advocate for being yourself, we're
all influenced by each other. We tend to copy the company
we keep, but really, we can look for those whose attitudes we
admire and work to be just a little more like them. It's not all
that hard, but it does require you to be aware of your behavior and make choices that lead you toward your goal.
Keep your dogs safe this Halloween, and I'll see you next
month!

Brenna Fender

Brenna Fender is a freelance writer and editor who works for Clean Run. She lives in Florida with her husband, two children, a Papillon (Spark), a Beagle (Wrigley), a
Border Collie (Tessa), her daughter's Chihuahua (Chase), and a variety of other creatures. Tessa has agility titles, UpDog Challenge disc achievements, and a Trick Dog
Champion Title. Over the years, Brenna's dogs have been titled in conformation, agility, Junior Hunter, Junior Courser, rally, obedience, and Canine Good Citizen. Brenna
can be reached at brennafender@gmail.com and you can visit her website at brennafender.com.
October 19 | Clean Run

http://www.brennafender.com

Clean Run - October 2019

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