As you may know I work for a pet first aid & CPR company. In first aid, pressure is used to stop or slow the flow of blood. It’s applied intentionally to interrupt the body’s natural process in a life-saving way. In agility, pressure can be equally powerful—when used well. We apply it to converge on a line, to steer our dogs off a wrong course, or to ramp up intensity with our own acceleration. That’s the good kind of pressure—smart, purposeful, and effective. But just like in first aid, if ...
Apr 08, 2025•15 min•Season 2Ep. 51
This is a reminder that allowing disappointment in accomplishes absolutely NOTHING. We should never let disappointment win. It’s a battle we can always win. Preventing the poison of disappointment into our runs and relationships is 100% preventable and controllable. Happy to be listening and learning? Want to keep me motivated? You can buy me a matcha or a chai latte by dropping some coin here (hit the donate button right there on the homepage). Learn pet first aid & CPR - use discoun...
Nov 15, 2024•14 min•Season 2Ep. 51
I'm known to have EVERYTHING a person could need when away from home, even probably more than most people have in their home but I carry it in a convenient tool bag. From safety pins and measuring tape to pain relievers and stomach soothers, I am known as CVS - Cara's Variety Service. While I might be a handy individual to have at the agility trial, there is nothing stopping you from being this prepared. I review what's in my bag, provide a list, go over what I have in my car and a few things in...
Aug 05, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 50
I've been watching friends and good handlers crumble under the pressure of trying to qualify for the 2024 AKC Agility Invitationals. While I know how to comfort them and buy them a drink, I needed to lean on the expert Julie Bacon, AKA The Q Coach to help teach us all how to get a grip on the mindset that is melting our agility skills. Julie as always gives us helpful hints, tools and processes to get out of our head and get in the game. Or for some, to let go of the pressure and just have fun, ...
Jun 06, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 49
Positive reinforcement isn't just a training method; it's a lifestyle, one that can transform not only the way we interact with our dogs but also how we approach life's challenges. For many, myself included, it's been a profound shift in perspective. Positive reinforcement training isn't just about rewarding good behavior; it's about fundamentally altering how we perceive and respond to our dogs' actions. It encourages us to shift from a fault-finding mindset to a solution-oriented one, focusing...
Apr 13, 2024•39 min•Season 2Ep. 48
When our dog is stressed, we often find our connection breaks. Picture a Venn diagram where two circles, stress and connection intersect. It is here that we need to find our way back into connection and away from the dark cloud of stress. While connection has much to do with our dog's ability to perform the behavior you have cued, stress can prevent a known behavior from being able to occur in an environment for which you cannot or do not train, like a trial. In the episode, I discuss how you ca...
Mar 15, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 47
After listening and then re-listening to Daisy Peel's The Agility Challenge Podcast Episode 13 on Where to start when you're starting and what makes an expert an expert I was inspired to discuss with my listeners the points I agreed with as well as expand upon this concept. I wanted to discuss what makes a good trainer and how can you be a good student, it is a two-way street. I am still very much both. Hopefully, I will continue to be a trainer but I will ALWAYS be a student. I am a consumer of...
Feb 17, 2024•44 min•Season 2Ep. 46
When Julie Bacon from The Q Coach reached out to me to record an episode on the grief we both recently experienced we talked off-air after the episode about life and such. She asked how I was doing and I said I was stuck in inaction, and in that moment I realized I just inadvertently asked for help from the best person to offer it. While my grief certainly didn't help matters, I was trapped in the frozen tundra of my mind for quite some time. I have been performing to standards, I have remained ...
Jan 30, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 45
In my day job of promoting pet first aid & CPR training I set Google alerts to scan the Internet for anything related to pet first aid & CPR. When I received a ping about a veterinarian-founded company that was filling a much-needed gap in pet care I reached out and had to learn more. Their products are just what pet owners and pet care professionals need to bridge the gap between comfort and a vet visit. My car now carries many of their products so when I am on the road, I know that if ...
Nov 16, 2023•54 min•Season 2Ep. 44
Let's be more holistic in our view of the agility community, the good and the bad, not everything will be perfect and we cannot lean towards one or the other too heavily. Remain in the center and accept that things may sometimes be amazing and sometimes not but as long as events occur more towards center, we will be Ok. There will always be outliers, dogs that are over-aroused in and out of the ring, reactive dogs, nasty reactive people etc. but the statistics aren’t showing that AKC agility eve...
Nov 02, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 43
I started compiling a list on my phone of what could make trials better for you as the exhibitor and me as an exhibitor. While these are specific to AKC agility, much of this information can apply to all organizations. Keep these tips in mind to help make your experience be the best. We all were beginners once, we are all on our own journey but for this to work, we all have to participate in the community. Protect yourself and be part of something, you can do both.
Aug 25, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Do you look at the big picture or are you focused on the details? This is an interview question I ask new hires for my dog-walking company. The correct answer is, both. But in agility, I feel like we lose sight of the big picture. And I don't mean the goal of a MACH or to be the #1 in our breed, we very easily lose sight of the picture that our dogs should be able to run any course with any appropriate challenges consistently, as long as we gave them good information. Not because we lied in that...
Jul 19, 2023•29 min•Season 2Ep. 41
Learn how to keep your pups in tip-top shape to be prepared to perform at their absolute best. While I obviously focus on agility, canine conditioning will help with duration sits in obedience, stamina in long nose work searches and in everyday life to afford your dog the physical and mental ability to keep up. The better shape they are in, the more longevity they have, and studies back me on this. I also share my workout circuit and how I acquired equipment on a budget.
Jun 30, 2023•49 min•Season 2Ep. 40
We compress the crap out of our dogs by putting them in situations that are not natural to them. This is not to say they are bad situations but they require a lot out of our dogs to handle the stimuli among other variables. Yes, over time many dogs become desensitized to all these situations, I would agree as my dogs age they become extremely comfortable and happy in their regular trial environments. However, we can help them bounce back to their baseline quicker and be more resilient if we give...
Jun 15, 2023•35 min•Season 2Ep. 39
When you have extra time please go back and listen to Episode 10 - Car Safety Setups & Keeping Cool it really covers an immense amount of useful information, so much so that I broke it down and redid it to a) remove the pandemic-isms and b) update some of the products I have found to be even better to help us and our dogs stay cool this summer. What it boils down to is a little bit of science, good cooling products and a great car setup. I help you keep your pups cool so the stress from the ...
May 26, 2023•33 min•Season 2Ep. 38
I struggled to develop a title for this episode because it covers SO MUCH! Julie Bacon of The Q Coach and I discuss the importance of our mindset for the human and the dog parts of our team, but then we cover so much more! We discuss the difference between outcome goals and process goals, what we can control, and what it takes to get there. We offer tons of tidbits to staying organized, saving brain power for where you need it the most (the ring) and even more ways you can help reduce the stress...
May 19, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 37
I have been seeing and hearing a lot about ISC events or classes added to trials recently. ISC stands for I nternational S weepstakes C lass. In my mind, this was a new addition to the AKC agility program which I admittedly knew very little about. Wanting to learn more about ISC, I went directly to the source, the director of AKC agility, Carrie DeYoung. Carrie shares a heap of information with us including that I was wrong about ISC being something new that was added, it's been around for 20 ye...
Apr 29, 2023•27 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Go listen to Episode 33 - Stressed for Success before you listen to this gem. Noreen Bennett of PawPrint Trials and I follow up on our Stressed for Success episode not just by providing solutions but also providing creative ways to unravel the uncertainty you may find you and your dog in on your agility journey. In our first episode about stress, we discussed how to recognize it. Now we cover how to actually combat it by building resilience in our dogs so we aren't just spreading the stress to ...
Apr 15, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Season 2Ep. 35
I'm bringing this to you as a bonus episode because I wanted to be one of the first to interview Steve after his fantastic win at the 2023 National Agility Championship. He and his dog Hogan, who is not a Border Collie, clenched the final win for the 24" class with a touch less speed but 100% consistency as Steve gives us insight into his strategy. Learn how Steve and Hogan go from ACT (the most beginner agility title one can earn) to NAC (the highest and greatest agility title). We discuss gene...
Mar 30, 2023•42 min
This episode captures a little bit of Michele and me geeking out on dog behavior and a whole lot of great information about how you can help your hyper, reactive or stressed-out dog in agility by letting them sniff. We bust myths about confusing dogs and allowing them to sniff, we arm you with a ton of information you can gather about your dog and we offer you an insight into the benefits of offering your dog the opportunities to tap into their innate behavior. I knew from my own experience how ...
Mar 24, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Noreen Bennett of PawPrint Trials and I just gave a seminar on the impacts of stress in our agility journey, called Stressed for Success. While she might be the most prominent trial secretary in New England, Noreen also has had a 25-year front-row seat watching stress in the ring and figuring out her own with her dogs over her lifetime. Some of us don't understand why our dogs act differently at trials, many of us know that it's stress making our Fido slow down, wander off or avoid obstacles but...
Mar 03, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Hey agility addicts! We're BACK ... AGAIN. Sorry for another hiatus, let's just say that life has interrupted our podcasting plans again. But never fear, we aren't going anywhere. This episode covers the 2021 AKC Agility Invitationals, which we BOTH were fortunate enough to attend this year. This was Cara's third time attending and Michele's first! Hear about initial reactions, expectations and results. We had different goals and we both learned some things for our next agility adventures. We re...
Jan 09, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 32
We're BACK! Sorry for the slight hiatus but Michele and I have had a crazy summer. We added puppies, travel, job changes, more projects, more trial work and so on and so forth! We are busy but we wanted to get back to what we love, talking about agility! We're thrilled to bring you the regional differences episode. We posted a survey and got a lot of great responses. Sorry, we didn't say it was AKC specific, some of you took offense to that but we've never hidden that in our podcast. Listen to w...
Oct 13, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Have fun playing your favorite game in a new place! Michele and Cara share a bunch of tips on how you can travel safely to agility trials outside of your home-turf.
Jul 11, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Learn how to make a good trial great. What factors fill trials, what makes exhibitors keep coming back year after year? Here is a the checklist for trial chairs . We're here to help you with ideas on how to fill trials in your area, keep exhibitors coming back and even marketing for you. What can you do to help the novice exhibitors who are the future of our sport? We want to help with that! Novice exhibitors, here's a checklist of what can make your experience better . Did you have a good or ba...
Jun 10, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Get a blind review and reaction to Cara's experience at the AKC Agility Premier Cup, meaning Michele had no idea how things went! We usually talk before we record but we decided to go with a natural reaction. Learn about the amazing event in this episode, the happy the humbling and the haunting.
May 18, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 28
We couldn't call this just a judge interview because Michael Teh is so much more than that! Mike is a judge, trial secretary and trainer. And because of his diversity in the agility community, we're going to need another interview with him or more. This is a great surface dive into all the different aspects of an agility trial from someone that wears many hats. At the end of the day Mike has a great message, no matter what hat he's wearing, he just wants us to enjoy!
Apr 21, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Michele and Cara had a blast not only interviewing a judge but a judge who was in the middle of an assignment at a trial where they were both entered. Michele masters her MACH while Cara masters her NQ's. It's a fun interview covering topics spanning juniors to course design to memorable gifts clubs have given. Listen, laugh and learn with us.
Apr 02, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 26
We had a double whammy this episode and had the privilege of interviewing AKC rep Arlene Spooner. In order to become a rep, you have to have judged and typically reps then can no longer judge. Thanks to the paindemic, unusual circumstances allowed an AKC agility rep to get back out there and judge. We get to learn from both sides, what it's like to be a judge, be a rep and then get to judge during the pandemic. Arlene like most reps is instrumental in not only reviewing courses so we can play ea...
Mar 09, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Another wonderful judge interview! Oksana couldn't figure out what our issues were in the 20" class after running a couple of Corgi's for many years so she got herself a super fast Australian Shepherd - now she knows! Listen to what she has learned with her 20" dog, how she commits herself to judging and the fun she has. Oksana always brings her big smile and dedication to judging; enjoy, learn and enter under her when you can, you won't regret it. But tie your shoes, you'll be running!...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 24
