Author: Alex

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Interactive and Spiritual Control

or why CONTACT does not mean CONNECTED

By working in depth with animals that are meant to perform you eventually come across the most amazing and fulfilling training scenario. You begin to realize that your spiritual energy transmits from one body to another, that a tiny whisper, a wink of the eye, a gesture of your hand cause performing energy to the eventual maximum of possibilities. All you did was a whisper to begin with. A tickle, A thought. And that delivers a piece of art very powerful yet enjoyable for spectators to look at wondering how did this just happen.

Lately i ran into a scenario in the horse world where a rider in desperate ways of wanting to learn was willing to spend a financial fortune to discover something as simple and individualized as it can be – FEEL and SPIRITUAL ENERGY. On a made horse. The rider liked the Connection – meaning the head of the horse dropped on picking up the rein. Nothing else just that part seemed most important. The submissive part of that animal was intriguing. Now – that is not what one truly should look for nor something one should throw gigantic sums of money at. One must be aware that animals have feelings they sense any emotional irregularity or negative energy but also find great comfort in the opposite. They can quickly emotional turn away from you and all there is left is mechanical SUBMISSION almost without spirit.

What needs to be worked on is the WHISPER, formation of an equality in spiritual energy , enticing signals clear and easy to understand, so that the outcome of the training is a consistent one that does not need any reins, any gadgets, any leashes, spurs, chains, collars or whatever instrument of human creation.Animals are a society too, they have their own rules,laws and tribal roots and their own evolutionary imprints they follow. We have the responsibility to discover, adopt, understand and support them in OUR desire to compete – we follow those principles and they give us the greatest gift and miracle there is – they give us SPIRITUAL CONTROL .

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Number One –

or why WINNING must NOT be IMPORTANT

I remember that a little more than a year ago i kept asking myself looking at the seasonal leaderboard of our jump division how do you get to be on the number one spot hitting the exact 19 feet 11 average using 15 jumps or more to earn an invite for finals. That year we finished in 22 nd with 19 feet 10. And this year as of yesterday we do rank in first in a tie leading a field of currently 303 – yes Three Hundred and Three dogs. And the season is just half way over. And not only that – we also won a direct qualifier producing the high score at Westrover’s National qualifier in Alabama. So we hit the jackpot – twice!

But how did we get here ? By not thinking about the distance jump at all, shifting focus towards the new very dog friendly low body impact discipline of Hydro dash, some Air retrieve on the site just trying to form a well rounded versatile canine triathlete.Changing the whole throw technique towards place and chase equal to LESS human and MORE dog. Working on performance fun, stressing soundness and physical fitness and backing off hard work to just get somewhere. Feel and fun and soundness. And so “the” Bernhardt delivered – all natural just by himself ( you really can’t make him do something he doesn’t want to ) with some guidance.Of course on top of that we got the little necessary Luck that created jump sequences that like a miracle added up perfectly to put us in the lead or as humans would say WIN.

In the end one just realizes how fragile the human mind can be when it comes to competing having animals involved. Those just do not care about WINNING, they care about evolutionary survival. And that means very clearly – Showing animals can never be a survival boot camp for them. They trust our judgement, they serve our interest , they look up to us and want to PLAY with us because we are fun. And feel good. And so we better keep it that way. The dedication towards our animals is what in the end we can than call personal victories – It’s the animals that MAKE US WINNERS !! It is there way of saying thank you.Our very special thanks goes to Lucy Hoeppner that applied all her magic art of bodywork helping Bernhardt to be loose elastic and flexible to keep on dealing with the challenges of dog agility. It needs a sophisticated team to groom an athlete. I do highly recommend her for horses as well having felt what she can do. There are results and that’s what matters !!

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The Learning never ends – 2019 Nadd/Akc Eukanuba National Championship

Well, we went and realized that the learning in regards to showing, training, preparation and actual performance just never ends.

One has to not lose track of the impacts that are highly influential – the emotional stress factors and distracting environmental displays towards the animal as well as the handler. For us it was a huge deal being the first full season on the dock diving circuit to just get there. Sure there where reasonable expectations – on the human side – to end up in the top ten percent of the field of roughly 180 dogs . In the end we finished on 63 which is still a placement in the top 30 percent of all finalists and that was pretty good to begin with. Some dogs did not jump at all, the majority under performed by 2 feet or more, you get only two jumps period so eventually the luck factor plays in as well.

The things that truly mattered where of a different sort – we could handle the dense traffic and exposure to hundreds of other dogs nicely, Bernhardt jumped without any hesitation, my friend Pamela Doolittle escaped any critic for may be having held the dog slightly wrong (really) and the main competitor left the premises physically unharmed.

Remember that even just the Olympic thought is only a human one – it does not exist for the animal. So next time you go out to show take it easy and just try to set everything up in the best interest for your partner and your reward will be great regardless the placing.

Eventually your teammate will blossom to the best of his or her potential and than YOUR TIME HAS COME !!

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The Importance of Fitness

26.06 MPH CATCHING USAIN BOLT

When you eventually decide to show and compete one of your biggest priorities is physical and mental fitness – for all actors. The mental condition of your animal absolutely connects to the physical one. It always amazes me how people change their approach to their animal in very drastic ways when it comes to showing. They will ride their horse may be every other day and 45 minutes a lesson can be quite exhausting to many. They walk their dog three times around the block or let it run loose in a dog park working their cell phone.

On a show however they want zero hesitate to enter two or three classes a day plus a little extra schooling plus warm up. They very easily quadruple the workload and the stress level.. Injuries and mental deterioration are the most common outcomes combined with low competitiveness.

It is absolutely mandatory that your work routine equals or even exceeds your show routine ever so often – fitness is a fundamental building block ! Bernhardt completed his very first fast cat 100 yard runs with a personal best of 7.77 seconds ( what a number ) and averaged 26.06 MPH in four runs over two days.In comparison Usain Bolt averaged 23.35 MPH with a max of 27.8 MPH at his world record and the best large Greyhound on that show ran 6.1 seconds.Not only does this activity school his kick and hind end but it also helps him to learn to cope with a different show environment and it is in a natural way a great energy outlet – for a well prepared fit and healthy dog !

It’s all build in your animal – discover. nurture, make it fun and they will give it all .

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Charging & Wiring

Building up Adrenalin but not FEAR or AGGRESSION.

For any level of performance outside of the natural behaviorism in normal environment or any trick/movement of high energy one has to create positive tension – and eventually release it. As higher the level as more Adrenalin has to flow to achieve the result such as Piaffe/Passage or jumping or agility sports.As more wired as less aid it takes to create reactions. Logically the handler/rider has to become calmer, quieter, slow and considerate in the approach almost equally to the amount of tension increasing in the animal.

In particular in horse training the opposite is more frequently the case, the aids get harder,the rider more tense. The spiral runs eventually out of control. Fascinating enough is the fact that in dog training or at shows you rarely ever witness a wired handler – there is a simple explanation for that : two wired Predators will just attack each other. A horse is Prey handled by a Predator – which requires extremely complex adjustments on the human part that are not that obvious in the origin and quite contrary to standard believes.

I met Jenny Schmitt and her awesome dog Sherlock at the West Bend AKC dog show and offered her some assistance on the dock, i never had seen either of the two before. We worked on finding the correct distance to place her dog and in Sherlock’s case on RELAXATION and CONFIDENCE awaiting the throw.

It is always fascinating to me how much one can feel and tell about an animal through body contact – in this case the hands in horses case the seat. How important correct timing and sensitivity in the aiding truly are. How much individualized ones training has to be to do every creature the same justice related to their personality. My dog Bernhardt is a somewhat different animal than Sherlock. The sensitivity and reactivity much different with other layers. So i adopt.

There is absolutely no every animal same training approach, it just does not exist. For that it is not simple but once done right comes along with rewards one can not buy. Emotional gratification for all involved and the awareness of doing something good.

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