Heather and I discuss what skills you need to earn your CGC, the sticking points that can cause trouble for some teams, and how to decide if your dog is a good fit for therapy work from there.

 Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I'll be talking to Heather Lawson about the Canine Good Citizen program and training a therapy dog. Hi, Heather. Welcome back to the podcast.

Heather Lawson: Hello, Melissa. Good to be here.

Melissa Breau: To start us out. Do you want to just remind everybody a little about you?

Heather Lawson: Sure. About me. What I do. I'm an instructor at Fenzi Dog Sport Academy. I'm a Karen Pryor certified training Partner, an actual CKC Canine Good Neighbor evaluator, a therapy dog evaluator, a judge for the Fenzi TEAM Titles program, and I'm the director of training for my own in person training business called Dogwise.ca.

And above all else, I'm an avid dog sport trainer and competitor. My breed of choice that I have had in my life for more years than I'd like to count is a German shepherd. And so by the sounds of it, it's dogs, dogs, dogs and more dogs in my life pretty much sums up my life. But yes, in addition to the dogs, I do have a couple other hobbies.

Gardening is one of them. Although I don't have a green thumb. But I do like to putter. And sometimes it's where I get my actual creative training ideas, believe it or not, because I could just zone out, don't have to think about anything except pulling weeds.

Melissa Breau: Fair enough. I think sometimes there's monotonous tasks that you don't have to think about or the best place to get to actually really think about things that are. Require that little bit of creativity. So I like that.

Heather Lawson: Yeah, it's kind of like. It's just my key thing is I need to remember to jot them down because sometimes I think, what was I thinking of? I had a really good idea for such and such and then it's gone. So I have to get more consistent with jotting them down as soon as I get them.

Melissa Breau: I feel that. So let's maybe start with the basics. So what do you see as kind of the, you know, key differences between a dog that's just, you know, well behaved at home and a dog that's ready for, you know, public life or therapy work, kind of that, that next step?

Heather Lawson: You know, that's a great question because people often think that just because their dog seems to be well behaved at home that they're ready to go for public life or therapy work.

And that's not necessarily always the case. In fact, it's usually never the case. They need to need more than just the standard basics. And by that I mean experience of not getting over excited, being approached and touched by strangers. Odd sounds and speaker systems, equipment like wheelchairs, walkers, and those little boxes called elevators that go up and down and make the floor feel like it's falling out from underneath them.

Things they might not experience in an at home situation or even in their everyday life with their humans. I mean some dogs have never ever stepped into an elevator. And then now you think you want to do therapy work, but guess what, the floor that you got to go to, it needs an elevator. You can certainly take the stairs, but you got to make sure that you're in shape for that.

So you want to make sure that when you're considering therapy work or even going to take the canine Good citizen test for that matter, you have to think outside the box and where your dog will actually be working and who they'll be visiting and then train for those little unexpected things. And usually most programs if you go to pursue them like therapy work, they'll have specific do's and don'ts that the organizations will allow.

So that will give you some directions to what your dogs have to be conditioned for. Canine Good Citizen. It's basic things that you would want to do with your dog anyways just for simpler everyday living with your dog and being able to take them wherever you want to go.

Melissa Breau: So let's dive into that a little more. Can you talk a little more about kind of what the Canine Good Citizen program is and a little more on kind of why folks might want to consider earning it?

Heather Lawson: Sure. For me, for Canada it's a Canine Good Neighbor. So I apologize if I might say CGN or instead of CGC it gets a little bit tongue tied. But in the US the CGC stands for Canine Good Citizen. In Canada it's Canine Good Neighbor. And the programs in the US is basically a two part program and it's designed to help people and their dogs navigate life together. So by two part program I mean that there are the basic Canine Good Citizen and then they do have additional classes and more advanced skills like really truly going out in public.

And those programs would guide you right into therapy dog work if you decided to go the next steps. I believe in the U.S. it started in 1989 and they had actually a good response. Over a million dog owners participating. The CGC has 10 basic skills. CGN Canadian has 12 basic skills. And these are designed to instill confidence and basic good manners both in and out of the home environment.

And it just helps the owners to. The program was developed under the hope that it would encourage owners to be good neighbors to those who surround them. Not have your dogs run wild, not leave your dogs out in the back yard unattended, to actually give them the companionship that they need and make sure that they're not a nuisance. It's a great starting point as it lays the foundation for a lot of other dog related sports and activities like obedience, agility, tracking, other performance events, because it sets your dog up to learn just the very, very basics that they can then fall back on in these new situations.

It's a program that really, if people take it seriously, it does protect the safety of the dogs and their owners because you get educated in the process and you're spreading the word to others around you that your animals are worth it, that they need that companionship. Because every, I mean, I look on my block and, you know, around me there's probably four or five dogs just within the three houses around me.

And you know, everybody's got a dog, everybody has companions. They seem to be a little bit of a change up, you know, for people who, you know, would like a companion. But they, you know, they're single, they don't have kids or anything like that, but they need a, they want a companion they can participate in, in real life with. So this is where the CGC or CGN brings that stepping point into it, right?

If you're, if you don't happen to be able to take classes around you or there's, you know, something else that you want to pursue, this gives you a really good foundation for it. Best of all, with these programs, with the CGC, CGN, anyone can participate. So that means big, small, you know, mutt or not everybody can participate. And it's a great way to help ensure your dog is truly, truly equipped to handle life with you, no matter what you decide to do.

Melissa Breau: So I think probably one of the trickier skills is Loose Leash Walking, right? So like, I think it often feels like it's a foundational skill, but it's really hard. It's something people struggle with. Why do you think it's so tricky and what makes it work when we've got it in those real world settings?

Heather Lawson: Well, at the expense of being blunt, it's inconsistency of the human.

Melissa Breau: Okay. Is what makes it tricky, what makes it work?

Heather Lawson: Consistency of the human. In other words, you know, of course, it includes, you know, building skills that you can use to educate your dog about what you need when the leash is attached. Okay. It's not just putting the leash on and going for a walk and expecting your dog to tag along and always do the right thing. They don't. They. You know, we humans, if you think about it, we're pretty much the only species that travels in a straight line.

And so, you know, this is loose leash walking or, you know, walking on a slack lead is really, really hard for, you know, a dog. They got four legs, so they're having to adjust their stride and do all these different kind of things. So you have to kind of have your skills, how you're going to communicate with your dog and what you're going to allow or not allow in place.

Right. So, for instance, in my house, loose leash walking actually begins without a leash. And it starts with me having cookies in my pockets all the time and walking around doing my everyday chores and rewarding my puppy and their dog. Okay. If they're out, you know, they've got shepherds, so they naturally follow you around no matter where you go. So every time they happen to make the choice to show up by themselves on my walking side, the side that I'm going to prefer to walk them on on a regular basis, when I'm out in public, they get a cookie. I don't say anything. I don't do anything. I just reach in my pocket, give a cookie, and continue on with what I'm doing and walk. So what I'm doing there is. I'm building a reason for being with me. So when the leash is attached, it's.

They're used to being there. They're used to showing up. I'm creating that reinforcement history, so already I've got something that's going to draw them to. To me. So when the leash is attached, I also mainly maintain the criteria of no pulling allowed when. When I'm out and. And wandering the streets. You can. The dogs can explore, they can sniff, but the absolute no, no is no pulling. I don't tolerate pulling, and it sounds harsh, but if you tolerate pulling, even for the small things, such as pulling to greet someone or pulling to get inside a class because they're so excited to be there.

Yep, you guessed it. You'll get more and more pulling because after all, it worked. They got to where they wanted to go. Right? So that's kind of a little bit of the basics and why things work or don't work. But what makes things work. In the real world, once you get, you know, you've got some skills out, is having those few basic skills under your belt and communication between you and your dog.

Giving them, for instance, giving them a heads up if you're going in a different direction. When I say, you know, if I'm turning around a corner, if I'm stopping to look at a window, I don't just stop and expect my dog to know what's happening because they might be looking somewhere else. I'll give them a heads up, say, here, Piper, I want you over here. And I stop and I'll look at the thing.

And then when I'm ready to go, I say, okay, let's go. So she understands what's happening and what's going. She's not getting, you know, jerked on the leash. So I talk to them as I'm walking along. I don't just walk along militaristically with my head, you know, facing forward. I'm checking in with my dog to make sure that they're okay, that they're enjoying themselves. If they need to stop and have a little bit of a sniff, that's fine.

Then we keep walking. But I want to make sure that I'm. I'm communicating it back and forth, just similar to what you would do if you're walking with your best friend you hadn't seen in six months. You wouldn't just kind of walk that along in silence. You'd be chatting back and forth and things like that. And then if you want to look at something in a store window, you'd say, hey, come on, I want to take a look at this for a second.

You give them that communication. And that's what is oftentimes lacking with the human, between the human and the dog. So by talking to them, even if you just have to tell them about the crappy day you just had, that's enough to keep them interested in you and paying attention to you. And when I start out in training, I start out my loose leash, walking in low distraction areas.

And I worked my skills. And so by just low distraction areas, I'll take the dogs to a school parking lot after hours and plunk myself in the middle of the parking lot, in the middle of the pavement, where there's not much to smell or sniff. And I'll work those skills. Left turns, right turns, walking, turning around in a circle, navigating, pretending I'm navigating through people, all those different types of things to see, to teach my dog how to connect with me.

Then gradually, I'll add more and more distractions, such as, you know, maybe going for a walk down. In. In our neighborhood, we're lucky we have back alley entrances, right? So I'll go down the back alley and there's lots and tons of things for the dogs to sniff. But so it gives me that little bit of added distraction. There's people coming and going with their cars and such, so it's not over the top for them.

And then gradually I add more and more distractions. But when you do that, make sure when you're adding the distractions that you have a plan for redirection. Don't just let the train wreck happen, okay? Be prepared, proactive and preemptive so things don't go sideways and you end up undoing all the good work that you've been doing. So if you've been having successes and now you're increasing distractions or you're bringing your dog out to a more enticing environment, don't let all the rules just go sideways.

Have your plan of action as to how you're going to help your dog maintain their loose leash skills, right, if not pulling, and make the right choices.

So I think the other, obviously the cishwalking is like one of the big skills that people struggle with. But I think another common sticking point are polite greetings. Right. Especially for dogs who may be. Tend to be a little more excitable.

So what's your approach to helping dogs be social but still kind of appropriate in public? Well, this will be kind of maybe against some people's considerations, but for me personally, I used to be one of those that would just, you know, oh, we gotta meet and greet every Tom, Dick and Harry that we see 2 foot or 4 foot. And it was just an absolute disaster. So I learned very early on that that is not the road I want to go down.

So now I personally don't let my puppies or dogs meet and greet every Tom, Dick and Harry, two foot or four foot, as I've said. And I will actually say no to people quite often because I want to build the excitement for myself between me and my dog. I don't want my dog highly magnetized to other people and other dogs. I don't want them to think that the party is always with other people.

And so I become and encourage my students as well to be very particular about the circumstances of greetings and when they happen. If my dogs are on leash, we don't meet and greet other dogs. We do that sort of, if you want to call it that high turn the head nod type thing and keep going. It's kind of like, hi, Frank. Hi, Rocky. And you keep going, right?

We don't stop. There's no need to stop and chat because more often than not, you're going to be walking past the dogs anyways. You're not going to be one of those who walks through the mall saying, hello, hello, how are you? How's it going? To everybody, they think you are nuts and they'd come and take you away. But we expect that from our dogs. And what that does, it just teaches them that better things happen away from them.

So when they're off leash, I say, yeah, have at it. Go play if they want to. My reason for this is that I do take my dogs everywhere with me. Conferences, training seminars, etc. And I don't want them making the assumption they can greet indiscriminately on their own terms, especially in the obedience scenario or dog sports scenario. I want my dogs focused and attentive to me. I want them concentrating on me.

I don't want them or somebody else getting them into trouble. And, you know, I don't want to be known as that person who can't, you know, keep their dog's face out of my dog's face and, you know, get grumbly. So I don't want them to be magnetized to people in the name of socialization or I don't want them magnetized to other dogs. I want party time, as I've said, to happen with me.

And this is where I find so many people say, well, my dog doesn't focus on me. I can't get my dog's attention. They're so they just want to meet and greet everybody. And the first question I ask is, do you meet and greet everybody? Everybody says, yep. And I said, well, there's your problem right there. Just meeting and greeting doesn't mean that you're. You're being social, you're meeting and greeting, and that you're saying to your dog, anything goes, right?

So we want them to look to us for direction to see if it's permissible and appropriate to do so. In my classes, we practice a lot of what I call neutral Ned and Nellies. And it's the name that a little boy who was taking class, so he's a neutral Ned, put the name to it so it stuck. And these are setups that we do with the human and their dog and to teach them to just to chill and hang out and wait for their humans to finish talking.

There's a little bit more to the whole exercise. I won't go into the whole thing, but we teach the dog that it's not always all about them, that they need to be sometimes just neutral and just part of the background. And I found for my own dogs, especially, and some of the dogs that we were having difficulties with in class, this is what they needed. They didn't know how to have an off switch.

They didn't know how to just chill and be kind of like the old saying, seen and not heard. So we taught them how to be seen but not heard and not felt. And that's part of how we work to getting the good greetings. And it used to be the old style was that you would have the dog sitting and somebody approaching, and all you would get was, you know, a little rocket booster sitting on rock.

You know, you ask a dog to sit there, they're on rocket boosters. They're gonna. They're gonna lift off at any time. So now what we. What I do is we have the dog, the person is standing there, and we teach the dog how to approach quietly and properly. If they can't approach quietly and properly, we go back and we start again, and they only get to go forward and then finally do the meet and greet.

When everything has been calm in the whole process. And that has worked superbly well because you don't have that buildup of, oh, the person's coming closer, closer, closer, closer. You lift off, right? And then the dogs don't get, you know, unnecessary corrections in the process. So that's in. In addition to our neutral Ned and Nelly setups, is the two options that we use for those appropriate greetings in public.

And we teach the dogs also, too, to say say hi. Right. And one other final little exercise we can do for some people is have the dog put their paw on the. Say hi with a paw tap on the foot, and then that way the focus is down. And a foot is easy to put a paw tap to versus a hand or anything like that. And it discourages the dog from, you know, coming up at the. At the human.

Melissa Breau: I like that. I think that's a neat idea. Kind of on that note of like having an off switch, I think maybe one of the challenges for some folks with, you know, therapy or CGC prep or CGN, I suppose prep is that the test often feels like it's about how calm and consistent the dog can be. What advice do you have for helping dogs succeed without kind of getting bored or, like, ending up with a dog who's a little bit shut down.

Heather Lawson: Okay, great questions. I like this. Again, it's. For me, I think it's about communication. Whether it's to set up for an exercise or at the end of an exercise and moving to the next point, talk to your dogs, encourage them. Don't become an alien to them. In other words, you know, the natural human response often is, oh, I'm being tested, I'm being tested. I better just do it.

And hopefully the dog will do it, etc. Help each other through it. Right. It's not a disaster. Right. It's not going to be the end of the world. So if you function under the premise of making your trading a game, then use that same format as a way to keep your dogs connected and either encourage them if they're shutting down or maybe a way to calm them down, tone them down a little bit more.

So if you have a dog that's. That's shutting down, a little whisper of good dog, you know, that's it. Patting on the side and getting them a little bit excited, getting that little butt going is enough to keep them in the game. And if you have a dog that's like, you know, just amping up and up and up, sometimes just bringing them in close and just giving a slight hug or press against your leg is enough to just calm down, chill, and then they're ready to go again and set up.

And there's no. There's no timing on these. On these tests they want you to run through and to get. Because usually they have a lot of people wanting to do the test. But if you're communicating with your dog and you're helping them be successful as a tester, I'm looking at that side of it because then I know that you understand what your dogs require and you're willing to do it and you're willing to abort if necessary.

So you want to make sure that there's that communication between the dog and the handler and. And don't worry. I mean, it's just one day or one test, and if you don't pass it, you can come back another time, tack it under your belt as a little bit of experience so you know what to expect. Right. You know, not always do we. Do we get and pass everything all. All at the same time?

Melissa Breau: So, yeah, again, just a little bit more on kind of the. The ideas behind some of this. What type of distractions do we expect or do we need our dogs to be able to handle both kind of for their test, for Like CGC type stuff. And then if we actually want to progress into therapy work, what distractions do you kind of prep for? And how do you, like, build the dog's ability to stay focused and stay composed, you know, around those distractions?

Heather Lawson: Well, I think that probably answered the back half of the question first. The whether, how they, how you build their ability to stay focused. Composed is just with the training and moving forward and adding more difficulty as they get, as they get better and better. But the types of distract.

Going back to the types of distractions, they can be anything from a stranger just saying hello to stopping and having a short chat with a person and their dog, to navigating a crowd. For CGC, it can be something navigating through a crowd of mingling people, you know, so you're gonna have noises, you're gonna have maybe bags dropped or things like that. For therapy work, it can be a crowd approaching, like converging on the dog.

I know in some, some of the therapy dog teams have mentioned to me, they get off the elevator and people are waiting for them, and they just crowd the dogs. So you have to have a dog that, that can accept that convergence of people and that, again, it's, it's part of the training. You've got to kind of think of, like, what kind of strange things would my dog, you know, come across in these situations?

What's the facility like that I'm going to be working with? Am I going to be working as a reading buddy with kids? Kids move fast. Kids are loud, or sometimes they're small and quiet, and they just need that little extra reassurance. But, you know, people could have mobility aids, things falling off the floor, like stainless steel bowls, even loudspeakers. If you're in a school or if you're in a hospital.

I mean, some dogs, they hear a loudspeaker and it's like they're out there out. They're out the door like a shot. It could even be people running to attend to someone, you know, code blue, code blue or whatever, code red or whatever they, they say, you know, and so, you know, people have to. Have to move fast. And so you don't want your dog being completely startled by that.

So those are all the things that you train in your distraction work, right? The dog is sitting or lying quietly down. You practice running past them, you practice somebody else running past them or any of those kind of situations. In all instances, we need our dogs to remain calm and hopefully look to their humans for direction. So if something falls off and you, and you startle, and then your dog looks to you and you're frazzled, well, chances are they're going to be frazzled too.

But if you. If your dog looks to you and you're calm and you remain calm and you tell them that it's okay, then chances are they're going to remain calm as well. On top of their training. We don't want the dog to initiate contact or interaction with people, but rather accept it when it comes their way, or be able to wait for permission to have that interaction, or in the case of other situations, ignore something when it does come their way, that they understand that they're not supposed to interact.

Somebody coming up to them with food and giving them food, you don't want your dog to interact with that, so you need them to be able to turn away and look towards you for direction. And so it's all about training and thinking outside of the box and making sure that you're not overdoing it right from the start. I have a sort of like a little thing that I do in my head, ABC training, and that is step by step, gradually increasing the difficulty for your dog so that at every step of the way they are successful.

Because if you go from. From not from maybe possibly being afraid of a bowl dropping on the floor to then tumbling a whole bunch of bowls on the floor without any kind of graduating sounds from there, your dog's gonna spook the moment something falls off of that. So I taught Piper how to make her own noises. So, and that's one of the exercises that we have in, in class is you make noise.

So a dog that's, you know, something thumps over like a book or something falls off a table and your dog startles and goes into a barking. We teach them that these noises do happen, that they're not a big deal, and that when they learn that they can make noise, they kind of accept it a little bit easier if that makes a little bit of sense. So I've only had one dog that was loudspeaker sensitive.

And I didn't know at the time that she might have been. And I didn't support her enough as I should have. But as she got older and older, she was able to handle it a bit. But all of my other dogs, I did all this types of sound work and making noise and things like that. And my dogs have never had a problem with thunderstorms or fireworks sounds off in the distance.

I never take my dogs to the fireworks. That's not a good thing to do. But some dogs, if they hear them in a distance, they get spooked. Or thunder in the distance, they get spooked. So by doing all these different things, sound things, the dogs learn that, yeah, sound happens. I don't always have to know where it comes from. It's not going to hurt me.

Melissa Breau: So a little more on the therapy dog front, what factors do you usually want to think about or consider when you're trying to decide if a dog is suitable for therapy work kind of beyond just, you know, do they have the skills they need to earn a CGC title? And then do you maybe have a favorite first step for somebody who's considering therapy work with their dog, like, but they're not really sure yet if their dog is ready.

Heather Lawson: Yeah, what, what I first look at just to, in my views or what I'm looking at when I'm considering whether or not a dog might be suitable is I look at the connection between the dog and the handler.

Are they communicating with each other and working together? Is the handler aware of guiding their dog? There's nothing worse than somebody walks in and they're not even paying any attention to their dog. They're just, the dog is just along for the ride and they're more focused on what I have to say or what else is going on in the room. I want that person, when they come in to make sure that their dog is ready to move forward and that they're aware of where they are, what they're doing at all times.

And I really, it's funny, but I really like it when people will pay more attention to their dog than they will to me. I know that they can hear me, but they're also watching their dog. And that's what I'm looking for, is that connection. I encourage handlers who are wondering if their dog is ready to either take the CGC test or do therapy work is to get a copy of the CGC test exercises.

And these exercises are available online on the various kennel clubs. You can get at the Canadian Kennel Club and the American Kennel Club websites and try them out with a critical eye. See where your dog currently is. Did each of the exercises go off without a hitch? Wonderful. Then as long as your loose leash walking skills are in place. Okay, don't forget those because those are really, really important.

You could probably consider the next step of checking out either doing a CGC test because oftentimes therapy organizations will take dogs who have their CGC over dogs. That might not just depends on the organization, but they may even require that the dogs already have their cgc. So if your dog can pass those a little test and then great. And you then want to take a look at the therapy organizations within your region or your location and ask them what the requirements are, they're happy to give you, you know, the requirements and, or they might direct you for further additional specialized training, depending on where you want to go.

If when you do the CGC testing on your own, you're not up to snuff, then that's okay. It just means that there's a little bit more work needed in the. Maybe the specific areas that you had difficulties, you spend a little bit more time on those, and then you try again with a critical eye and make sure that you know your dog is meeting the parameters. And if they are, then you shouldn't have any problem in determining whether your dog is ready to go or not, because they've already demonstrated that they can do the very basics. And that's, that's where I would go with it if somebody's interested in that.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So part of the reason we're talking about all this is because you do have a new class on the schedule at FDSA this term, specifically about training for the canine good citizen programs and becoming a therapy dog. So do you want to just talk a little more for us kind of about the class specifically and who might want to join you?

Heather Lawson: Sure, anybody and everybody would want to join me. No, actually, I just. If you've got a puppy or dog or young dog and have aspirations of possible therapy work, then this is a great start because we work on a lot of the basics and we stretch them a little bit more than what you might think of doing initially. And not only will it improve your everyday home manners, but your public face, and it gives your dogs the tools to begin making correct choices.

You know, like I said earlier on, everybody seems to have a dog. A lot of couples have dogs and they like to travel. The young generation, they like to go camping, they hiking, they travel all over the place. And so this kind of a class sets your dog up for successes, whether or not you're staying in hotels or you're staying in campgrounds, or, you know, maybe you're got your own trailer that you stay in, your tent.

If your dog has all of these sort of etiquette behaviors, then they're going to be welcomed. And it makes it easier then for the rest of us who want to do things with our dogs to be able to have that opportunity as well, we want to make sure that we're always setting a good example for those coming up behind us. And you know, I, when I look at raising my puppies or my dogs, I'm not actually training a puppy.

What I'm training to is what I want my dog to be when they are grown up. Because if I treat them like a puppy, yes, I can only do so much because they're only a certain size and there's certain brain width bandwidth in their heads. But I'm always looking ahead to what I want them to be like when they grow up. So that means that if I don't want them jumping on me now, because I don't want them jumping on me when they're 70 or 80 pounds, it's going to hurt a lot more.

So I'm always catching and molding and doing all those things right from the start. So, you know, if you're having any problems or issues, this is a place to revisit and see whether or not your foundation behaviors got skipped over a bit. See if there's something missing. Yeah, and generally there is. Okay. And, and generally, you know, I mean, they're not big misses, but they can sometimes be really important misses.

Right. And they can really affect other areas of a dog's lifestyle. You know, I mean, they're, they've got it really hard navigating the human way because, you know, they're way ahead of us. They, they understand our body language even better than we understand our human body language. They understand all the, the nuances and the sounds and the, and the little signals that we give. And yet we, we don't even pay attention to, you know, sometimes what they need and how they're having a difficulty in navigating and this kind of look at it and teaching them the basics and the manners and how to react and what to expect from us gives them that, just that balance that they need and eliminates the stress.

Melissa Breau: Any final thoughts or maybe key points you kind of want to leave folks with on this topic?

Heather Lawson: Yeah, I think I probably already said it, but don't think of the CGN, CGC or therapy dog skills as basic pet dog skills. They ain't. They're lifestyle skills that help to set our dogs up for additional life experiences, whether that be dog sports or the simple pleasures of being your companion.

A dog who has life skills under their belt or in this. And since their collar is much more likely to be able to transfer the calmness and acceptance of different situations to the dog sport ring, so they'll be easier to live with and travel with and accept change and unusual circumstances. Much easier if they have a chance to learn what it's all about. Too often we get caught up in teaching them all the things that they need for their dog sport.

We gotta do this. We gotta make sure it's a tuck sit or a perfectly straight stand or, you know, heads up, heel and come straight front and all these kind of things. And we forget that that's only a very small, small portion of their life and what it's gonna be like. And if we can give them the basic foundation of how to function and how to move and who to look to for direction, it takes a lot of stress off of the dogs.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much, Heather, for coming on the podcast to talk about all this.

Heather Lawson: Thank you for inviting me again. It's fun. I love chatting. I could go on for hours, as you know.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in itunes or the podcast apple of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available.

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

Credits

 Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!