Clean Run - December 2015 - 49

Kate believes she is a successful teacher in
part because she has been accumulating
years of knowledge in the field, with a variety of dogs. "I have a good understanding of dog behaviors and how to troubleshoot. I also have a really good eye for the
little things that could turn into bigger
problems." An effective communicator,
she helps students understand what they
can do to be more successful in the future.
"I try to give students solid skills from the
beginning, so that they have a solid foundation and can avoid issues in the future."
Teaching has helped to keep Kate sharp
with her own handling. "I will test something out on my own dogs and make sure
that I am happy with it before bringing
it to my students. Teaching allows me an
opportunity to repeat the footwork and
technique a lot, and makes me a stronger
handler and competitor myself."
In her sparse off time, she likes to watch
sports with her boyfriend Jason, and
sometimes her father. "I really enjoy
trap and skeet shooting, which my father
raised me doing. That is something we
also do together. I like sports. Power and
Great have hockey names." She and Jason
also attend sporting events and concerts.
"We are currently on a kick to see music
legends before they retire or die."

Training Her Own
Agility with her more seasoned dogs
means tune-ups and addressing individual skills. "I will work with them at
home, in the evening, or take them with
me." She admits, though, that sometimes
it is difficult to get motivated after she
has been working all day. "Once they
have the skills, I can maintain criteria,
and I can do most of that at shows. However, there are some things that need
more time, and I have a smallish training

area at home-70' by 30'-where I can
accomplish a lot."

are working on lots of collection." She is
also beginning to weave.

An example would be Smart's running
dogwalk. "I will look at what I am getting at a show, and if I am unhappy with
something, I will go home, break it down
into smaller behaviors, try to find out
what is not working, and then help her to
understand what I am looking for."

Kate is not discouraged in training when
a dog doesn't get it right. "It is dog agility
and they are dogs. It's not like I can tell
them exactly what it is I want. I have to
figure out how to help the dog understand
what I want." So, she will go back to the
drawing board and look at what she did,
break it down into pieces, and figure out
where the dog is successful. "Then I will
build success back to the behavior I want."

Most of Kate's training at the moment focuses on her 1-year-old, Great. "When I
have a puppy, she goes anywhere that is
dog-friendly. Sometimes I train a little in
between lessons or classes, or at the end
of the day, but mostly she gets worked
at home. My goal is to do agility at least
twice a week." She may end up doing a
total of 20 or 30 minutes, but there are
small breaks in between. "I don't work
anything longer than 5 or 10 minutes because I don't want to overload her brain."
The running dogwalk is a big part of the
training right now, and is her own variation on Silvia Trkman's method. "I look
at the striding, trying to get her to target
the yellow with her feet and rewarding
specific behaviors. I spend a lot of time
proofing and making sure that I'm really
happy with her current behavior before
I increase criteria and add variables,
such as increasing her starting distance
or adding another obstacle, plus varying
my location and speed."
She is really concentrating on Great's
turning skills. "My dogs have a lot of
power and I've had a hard time getting
them to turn efficiently. I'm focusing on
helping Great to understand turns and
how to use her body, right off the bat.
Plus Great is a big girl, so she is really
going to need to turn well." Rewards are
delivered close to the base of the jump so
she understands to wrap tightly. "And we

With her younger dogs, Kate videos nearly every training session for immediate
review. "I will keep it on my computer for
a while. I can look at something that may
have popped up a few training sessions
before and didn't really manifest until
later." She will also do this when teaching the older dogs new behaviors and at
every competition. "I look at those right
away if there is something specific I want
to see, or I might wait until the end of the
weekend. If I am training something new
and want to see how it went, I will do
both. I am a little crazy about my video!"

Training the Trainer
Always open to information, Kate tries
to look at different handling systems,
and take away from each one what she
thinks works for her, her dogs, or her clients. Then she tries to be very consistent
within that information. "I started in the
Dark Ages of agility in the US. It was the
blind leading the blind. We were luring
everything and getting dogs over contacts with no understanding of criteria."
She is amazed at the growth of information between then and now.
Most of the newest information she is
keen on comes from OneMind Dogs.
Kate enjoys integrating some of the skills

Teaching has helped to keep Kate sharp
with her own handling. "I will test something out
on my own dogs and make sure that I am happy with it before
bringing it to my students. Teaching allows me an opportunity
to repeat the footwork and technique a lot, and makes me a
stronger handler and competitor myself."
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Clean Run - December 2015

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