Learning What Counts: One Trainer’s Journey

Dog training can help you cultivate self-worth, build compassion, and learn what really matters for your dog and for yourself. photo: AdobeStock

Dog sports can be as simple as a weekend hobby or as serious as any career.

Training a dog to a set sport criteria can test your training skills, mechanics, and ability to teach something more complicated than basic manners. It can also help you cultivate self-worth, build compassion, and learn what really matters for your dog and for yourself. 

Over the years, I’ve dipped my toes into all sorts of dog sports - flyball, obedience, K9 nose work, rally o, ring sports, bite sports - and I’ve done it with all kinds of dogs. Here’s what I’ve learned on that journey.

My first foray into dog sports was with K9 nose work. I was extremely lucky to train under some of the best trainers, including the founders of the sport. One was the very capable Ron Gaunt, a detection dog trainer and handler with decades of experience under his belt. Ron would regale me with stories about detection dogs in action, watching his dog search out a perpetrator while he just smiled. Ron could see the dog pick up the odor and he’d know where the perp was hiding long before anyone else on the scene. 

Once at a seminar, Ron took my dog Leroy - who had a penchant for aggression towards other dogs - off leash and kept him completely focused on a ball game while another dog entered the space. I almost had a heart attack (dog sports would teach me a lot about my own anxiety issues), but Ron knew what he was doing and was a pro at it.

In fact, the first dog I took through competition was that same Leroy. This dog was such a challenge for me in so many ways, but nose work was his happy place. At our very first trial, he placed first in the interior search, finding the hidden target odor in less than four seconds (his reward was his favorite tennis ball). 

But the competition wasn’t much fun for him between runs because poor Leroy had the runs himself. The adrenaline coursing through his body made him lightning quick, but it was also making him sick. We went home that day with a pile of ribbons, but it was our last formal competition. Leroy taught me to put my ego aside and make a decision in favor of my dog. 

But Leroy loved nose work games so we would meet up with a group of women and their bully breeds on certain evenings in Vallejo, setting up our own less competitive searches in empty parking lots and parks. Leroy excelled at the activity. He didn’t need ribbons to prove that, and he certainly didn’t need the stress of a formal contest. 

Some time later, I started teaching nose work classes and eventually ran a K9 nose work club, including weekly search set-ups, competition practice, and mock trials. At our most memorable trial, our club cleaned house! My own dog Mikey took first place in three of four elements and was only beaten in the fourth by one of our fellow club members, who took home that remaining first place ribbon. We also earned the rescue dog award that day. And to think, I’d almost bailed on the trial due to an anxious stomachache.

That day, I was especially proud of Mikey, who had been rescued from a large dog fighting ring and was an absolute machine of a dog. Despite her rough background, she excelled when it came to speed and accuracy. Teaching Mikey helped me learn what “high drive” actually meant - and how to deal with a dog who was always just a bit faster than I was.

One of the best lessons Ron taught me was some wisdom regarding competition: the dog doesn’t care about the ribbons, it just thinks it’s out for another day of fun training with you. This is absolutely true and a good thing to keep in mind for anyone who decides to pursue a dog sport. Dogs don’t care about winning or placing first. That’s just a people thing. 

But I can tell you with certainty that it’s quite a stressful experience when you are a professional trainer heading into a competitive environment. There is immense pressure to do well. 

By this time, I had begun to notice that several trials had left me feeling sick and stressed. But my ego was determined to continue and push through it. After all, another nose work trial was coming to the area, and Mikey and I were ready.

At that next trial, I got to the trial site early, took a hefty dose of Xanax, and tried to calm my nerves by pacing back and forth. From my work with anxious dogs, I understood that you couldn’t just stop anxiety with will power. That’s just not how it works. 

We got set up for the first search, the box search in which the dog is sent down a line of boxes and alerts to the one with the target odor inside. At the start line, everything suddenly slowed down for me and I wasn’t very aware of my surroundings. But Mikey was like, “I’ve got you, human!” I sent her to search and she raced down the line, nudging a box which caused me to blurt out “Alert!” a second too soon. Hearing me, she’d alerted to the box right before the target box. Fail! 

My nerves had gotten the best of me, but things were smooth sailing from there on out, and Mikey won first place in all the remaining elements that day. We took home all the prizes and I was so proud of my little musclebound wild child. She had come from such a place of abuse and neglect, but you would never have known from her performance what she endured before her life with me. She was a lesson in resilience.

But about this time, I slowly began to withdraw from dog sports. I had been training my purpose-bred Malinois for French ring sport for four years and while he was close to ready to begin trialing, I was beginning to realize that I was not. At the time, Lisa Maze owned the Malinois with the most dog sport titles in the country so I paid attention when Lisa told me I wasn’t cut out for the competitive environment in ring sport. Boy, was she right! 

I had started to experience ongoing digestive issues that were not related to food or allergies. I would get dizzy, have no energy, and collapse in exhaustion at the end of my day. I was no longer having fun training for competition or putting that kind of pressure on myself or my dogs. In fact, it was making me sick. 

I thought back to when I took Leroy to his first nose work trial and, while he aced it, he was also sick and I decided it wasn’t healthy for him. I gave him grace that day and I decided to do the same for myself. Like Leroy, I realized I was more than my place in a competition or the titles and ribbons I brought home.

I still have a very fond spot in my heart for all things related to dog sports. They  shaped me into the trainer I am today and ultimately allowed me to become more effective in my true calling: helping troubled dogs find peace and their worried humans learn the skills to help these dogs succeed. I wouldn’t trade that for the world. 

Kindness and grace are necessary for both ends of the leash to flourish and that picture can look a thousand different ways. Today, I teach my online clients how to incorporate dog sport skills and games into their daily lives. There is certainly a benefit to learning these skills and developing a dog’s ability to play and enjoy the fun, even if you never plan to set foot in a trial environment. 

Dogs don’t care about ribbons or placing first. All your dog cares about is having fun with you and enjoying another day of training together. If teaching your dog a specific skill brings you both joy, it’s worth the journey. And that’s what really counts in sports and in life.