Lorrie [00:00:07]:
Welcome to the Maximum Fun Agility Podcast. I'm Lorrie Reynolds, owner of Maximum Fun Dog Sports. We help your agility team build your relationship, communication and confidence so that you can have fun and succeed on any course. In this episode, we'll talk about failure and how it can be a good thing for your dog agilitytTeam. Years ago, after an unsuccessful run, I walked off the agility course, rewarded and loved on my dog, exited the building and dissolved into tears. The negative thoughts kept running through my head. "He needs a new handler." "I'll never be able to keep up."
Lorrie [00:00:43]:
"He could go so far if he wasn't limited by me." "I suck at this." We've all been there. That moment when it all comes crashing down and the self doubt comes flooding in, making us beat up on ourselves and wonder if we should even be doing this sport we love. Maxx was a phenomenal, athletic, intelligent, and incredibly fast and driven dog. If he'd been someone's third or fourth agility dog, he could have easily competed on the international stage. He was my first agility teammate and I had a lot to learn. We'd had a beautiful run until he got too far ahead of me and had to decide which obstacle to take without me there to direct him.
Lorrie [00:01:25]:
He chose wrong based on the judge's design, throwing the rest of our run into chaos. It happened often enough that I later coined the phrase "The faster they go, the faster they go off course." Back then, almost nobody taught distance. The people who could do it couldn't tell you why it worked, only what they did. Instructors were still very much focused on getting from obstacle to obstacle on the course, rather than shaping a path through the course that included the obstacles. I had just started teaching weekly agility foundations classes and decided in that horrible post run moment that I was going to figure out how I could be a better teammate for my incredibly fast and talented dog, regardless of the physical limitations that were slowing me down. Over the next several months, I researched, I read everything I could get my hands on. I studied other sports like herding, and learned more about dog behavior.
Lorrie [00:02:20]:
I experimented with poor Maxx, figured out what worked and connected the why. I failed a lot, but I also grew. I grew my knowledge, my skills, and built a system around what I learned. And what I learned was surprising. Success was more about building the dog's confidence than drilling skills. It depended more on incorporating natural cues into my handling system than teaching learned responses. The more consistent I was, the better he understood what I wanted. Distance wasn't actually just about teaching the dog how to take a jump 30ft away.
Lorrie [00:02:55]:
It was entirely about communication. Once it started working, I wanted to share what I learned with other people who were struggling. In 2005, I rolled out the first version of Agility Fundamentals for Distance, called it Gambling is Addictive and taught it as a one day seminar. People watched Maxx running on course and wanted to learn. I got tons of referrals and I taught at an average of 8 weekends per year for many, many years, adding other related courses along the way. One of my most memorable agility moments occurred when it finally all came together on a NADAC bonus run with Maxx. At that time, for the bonus box, a line was drawn across the whole ring near the front of the course. You had to stay behind the line for the entire run and the dog had to be in flow with no redirects or deviations from the ideal path.
Lorrie [00:03:46]:
I walked onto the Weaver's course with Maxx. The weave poles on the other side of the ring seemed a mile away, although they were actually about 60 or 70ft. It was just before my first knee surgery and I was struggling to limp around, let alone run. The feeling of having a connected, smooth run when your dog is working that far away is indescribable. At that moment, the struggles and failures and tears were worth it and I decided that I wanted to help as many people as I could experience that same wondrous feeling. It's the main reason that I have continued teaching and expanded my reach by going online. Most people view failure as an awful, embarrassing, and unfortunate thing. If I had stayed in that mindset after a few of my disastrous runs, I would never have followed this path I'm on.
Lorrie [00:04:37]:
It wasn't until I started looking at failure as a learning opportunity and letting it be my motivation for improving that I was able to turn things around with Maxx. You're going to fail. Fail fast and fail often, but learn something every time you do. Consider failure as a learning opportunity to determine what doesn't work so you can discover what does. Don't let embarrassment stop you because the only people who have never failed are those who have never tried. Use your failure to motivate you to learn more so your team can improve. This week, take a look at one of your past failures and instead of viewing it as proof that you did something wrong, look at it from the perspective of what you can learn from it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Maximum Fun Agility Podcast.
Lorrie [00:05:27]:
If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider leaving a review. When you leave a review, it helps other dog owners find the podcast, too. If you'd like to take it a step further and join our community, visit www.maximumfundogs.com and sign up for the free weekly email that provides training tips, seminar information, bonus content and more. See you next time.
