Every new year social media is filled with posts about setting goals for the new year, creating new habits, or letting go of old ones.  And every year I usually do something along those lines, buy new planners and tell myself this is the year I will finally use them. I plan a new habit, commit to eating healthier, exercising more, etc.  And almost every year I fail at them.  I have a pretty healthy dose of ADHD paired with some other fun things, and having only been diagnosed for two years I have never taken my ADHD into account when planning for my new year. (there will be some ..read more

If your dog is struggling to continue driving after you have cued a turn away, or in my case a “Switch”, here are some tips!  If my dog is struggling with continuing to drive to the next piece of equipment after a Switch (or any turn) I want to first break down that skill by asking myself some questions about the skill itself.  Does my dog fully understand what a Switch cue is?  Have I worked on my Switch from all handling positions and with each piece of equipment?  Have I proofed my dogs understanding and confidence with a Switch by adding distance?  Most of the t ..read more

In the Fluid Motion Community over the last couple of months I have been doing what I call Car Chats. Topics have varied from negative self talk, prepping for NADAC Champs, to what age to start training. Below are some clips from a car chat where I discussed confidence and distance training in agility. The full lecture can be found in the Fluid Motion Community ..read more

Throughout all my years with dogs I am pretty sure I have fed everything under the sun. Budget kibble, high end kibble, commercial raw, dehydrated, DIY cooked, and raw, grain, grain free, and combinations of all the above. I compete in agility with all my dogs, and over the years I have found that for them, including some type of grain helps with their physical and mental performance, so I tend to always include that with whatever variation I am feeding. My choice in what type of food I feed has generally depended on how my dogs do on it, and the price. Those have always been my driving factor ..read more

Last weekend I packed up the car and headed to South Jordan, UT for the Bad Ass Agility UKI Festival. This was my first time offering Trigger Point and Dynamic PEMF at a UKI event like this and it did not disappoint! It was a large facility that I was familiar with from holding NADAC Championships there many years back, and I was able to have my table where I could watch most of the trial over the weekend. There were some amazing dog and handler teams entered and I loved being able to see so many of these runs in person, and watch all of the different handling styles. When I wasn’t watching th ..read more

I am always on the lookout for new style bowls, enrichment mats, or puzzle style feeders. After publishing a video on why I am not a fan of most all of the hard plastic slow feeders, The Puzzle Feeder reached out to me to ask if they could send me one of their bowls to test out and give some feedback on. Before I agreed I wanted to check out what their bowls were all about and more about the company. This was back in November 2022 and they got started through KickStarter. I went through their website, and learned more about the bowls, how they are made, and the values of the company. Their bo ..read more

Feeding our dogs and dog food in general is a very emotional topic. With all the different options to feed our dogs and so many polarizing opinions on what is “best” for our dogs, choosing not only what kind of food, but what brand. But what I want to talk about is not how to choose what is “best” (if that is even something we can say 100%) But the mental toll that feeding our dogs can take on some. The mental toll can be from choosing what dog food and the stress of trying to choose what is “right” or from trying to do what we perceive is “right” Over the last couple of years i became obsess ..read more

Winter Rest and Play Winter has officially started at my house here in Eastern Oregon, which means outside training time for my dogs has greatly decreased.  While we still go outside for play time and daily exercise, with the off and on rain/snow, any agility training is off the table until spring.  For my dogs I enjoy having some forced time off during the winter. Not only do I feel that it is beneficial for my dogs mental health, I also strongly feel that having some time off is crucial for my dogs physical health as well.  Generally my trialing season slows down quite a b ..read more

In the first lesson of this Directional Series I will be talking about the foundations for how I teach my Out cue. Out for my dogs means for them to move away from me, or take the obstacle furthest from me. I like to begin with teaching an Out using cones, but you can start with a hoop as well. First, like all your cues, you need to define what an Out cue means to you. As well as what your body language and verbal cue look like for your cue. Because Out for me means for my dog to move away from me or take the obstacle furthest from me, I will start my Out foundations with a cone, and as ..read more

How many times do you watch your runs from a trial and pick out all the things that went wrong? Instead of all the things that went right? I am very guilty of this and I have been trying to focus on the positive things that happened during the run instead of just focusing on everything that went wrong. And I will be the first to say, its hard!! I have to make sure and make a conscious effort to list all the good things that happened, but it has definitely helped my mental process during trials.  This doesn’t mean I ignore the things that went wrong, I will think about them, what happened ..read more