Flying Poodles

Ten years?!

A couple of months ago I heard an interview on the radio. Can’t remember a lot about it (and can’t seem to find it on Google) except… the interviewee talked at some length about the need for ten years of practice and experience with a sport before you can understand it fully. Now, this is not the 10,000 hours of practice lots of people talk about; this was ten years, because it took ten years to really understand a complex sport.

I really wish I could find the interview again, because it really struck a chord. When I’d been training dog agility for about two years, I was helping teach a class; I honestly thought I understood training and the sport of agility. Well, I don’t think I did any damage with my arrogance–I’d been well taught and I was passing on good training techniques–but… it was certainly arrogant of me to think I understood agility.

I’ve now been doing dog agility training and competing for almost six years–it’ll be six years in August–and I feel I’m just beginning to get the subtleties of the sport. I’ve learned to observe dogs and people to watch the dance between them; I’ve learned that every dog is different AND every dog is the same ; I’ve learned how to memorize courses by looking at patterns not obstacles; I’ve actually put an elite title on a dog, which is not that easy, even if it looks that way when you see someone get a MaCH (or NATCH or ADCH or whatever) almost every trial.

And I’ve learned how much I do not know about agility. I’ve learned that I’m just beginning.

Every dog is different and every dog is the same: ALL dogs will repeat behavior that they find rewarding; each dog is motivated by different things–and may need a different set of instructions to get to the same result.