Exiting the Ring

You’re sitting by the group, watching your fine champion trot around to applause from the gallery. But as much as you enjoy your dog’s success in the ring, it’s a bittersweet moment because his show career is coming to an end. 

What’s more, you know your dog, and you know he won’t be content consigned to a life of boredom as a couch potato whose days are only occasionally enlivened by some lovesick lady dog seeking a tryst — or, if it’s a bitch, by motherhood. But there are so many different dog sports to choose from that it’s difficult to make a decision as to what’s next and what’s best for your dog.

One way to start sorting out the confusion is by asking the dog. No, that doesn’t mean saying, “Have you given any thought as to how you’d like to spend your time after you retire from the show ring, Sport?” It means really asking the dog by discovering what he likes to do and whether he has any of the skills or talent needed to do it. 

For some lucky dogs, this has already been determined, at least partially. Their owners had enough foresight to realize that their dogs wouldn’t be show dogs forever and the day would come when it would be time for them to start doing something else. So, they have combined the show ring with participation in other dog sports. 

In some cases, owners wanted to determine whether the dog could do the job the breed was intended to do before they spent the money for the conformation ring. These fortunate dogs, in many instances, have had performance titles before they put their first paw in the conformation ring, and when their show career is over, they simply move seamlessly back into whatever performance activity they were doing before they started being a show dog. 

In some cases, the dog’s owners wanted to know whether the dog could do the job the breed was intended to do before they spent the money for time in the conformation ring. 

But for others — or, rather, for their owners — the list of the different dog sports available these days is a long one.  

Perhaps the best way to begin is by finding a sport that mirrors, as closely as possible, the job the breed was historically developed to do and seeing if your dog has any interest in doing it. Almost every club for every type of event in every area of the country holds fun events where people new to the sport get to try it out. Hunt-test clubs and Sporting breed clubs, for example, frequently have events where they supply pigeons to see just how “birdy” your dog is. Herding clubs have similar events where you can get some idea of how interested your dog is in moving livestock, and lure-coursing clubs have “fun runs” where you can see if your dog has any desire to chase things. The number of clubs hosting these introductory events is extensive, so odds are good that you will be able to find what you are looking to try with your dog fairly close to home. If there is no club holding “tryout days” in your area, find a club that holds licensed events in the sport you are considering for your dog and contact some members. There’s almost always someone in any performance or companion dog sport in every club who is willing to help a newcomer determine if it’s something their dog can or will do.

Perhaps the best way to begin is by finding a sport that mirrors, as closely as possible, the job the breed was historically developed to do and see if the dog has any interest in doing it.  

Once the dog has indicated whether or not she’s interested in a sport, you’ll need to begin training. If you have never trained a dog for a sport and you are planning to train your dog all by yourself, here is a word of advice: Don’t. That’s because even the most experienced trainers make mistakes. If you happen have one of the many breeds that remember everything, good or bad, that you teach them, it is incredibly difficult to undo training errors. If it’s a major error, chances are it will re-surface at some point, most likely when you have the most money or bragging rights on the line — or both, because it is virtually impossible to completely “untrain” a training mistake with dogs that have long memories.  

Even if you should happen to have an extremely forgiving breed, you want to keep the number of training errors you make to a minimum because you still have to undo that mistake, which means you will have to spend time —and, in a lot of cases, money — undoing that blunder. As a rookie, without some serious guidance from an experienced trainer, you will make a LOT of avoidable training errors as well as handling errors, and either or both will cost your dog qualifying scores or placements.

This means that one of the first items on your “to do” list should be to find a mentor, preferably someone who has put several titles on dogs in your chosen activity. Or let a professional train your dog or at least do a lot of the dog’s training while also helping you learn how to train and handle your dog. 

This search requires more words of caution: As examples, unless your Sporting breed is a Labrador, German Shorthair or English Springer, or your herding breed is a Border Collie, or your protection dog candidate is a German Shepherd or a Malinois, be sure your mentor or the pro you select has successfully trained your breed or one very similar.

Herding clubs have tryout days where you can get some idea how interested your dog is in moving livestock. 

The importance of this cannot be emphasized enough. You can get by with doing things to a Labrador, for example, that will set your training back for months, at minimum, and may never be fixable if you have another retriever breed. If you have a Herding breed, a trainer who has only worked with Border Collies can really mess up one of the upright, loose-eyed breeds. So, just as you likely were very careful selecting the dog’s handler for the show ring, you need to be even more cautious in your selection of a mentor or a pro to help you or to train your dog. 

If you plan to have a pro train your dog, you also need to do more than listen to the trainer extol his or her virtues. There are some phonies posing as dog trainers, and the worst ones usually have the smoothest lines. Dog trainers aren’t licensed so there is no “Guide to Dog Trainers” that provides a rating for these individuals. Essentially, anyone with a board and a bucket of paint can hang out a sign saying they’re a dog trainer.  

Hunt-test clubs and Sporting-breed clubs frequently have events where they supply pigeons to help you discover just how “birdy” your dog is. 

What this means is you should not only ask for references — people whose dogs were successfully trained by an individual — but it’s wise to attend some of the events for your sport and ask others at that event what they know or have heard about a particular trainer. If they are familiar with the trainer’s reputation, ask for details. Bad or incompetent trainers can’t keep their ineptitude or other more serious flaws secret for very long in the dog world. Sooner or later, the word gets out that it’s not wise to trust your dog to so-and-so. On the other hand, the word also gets out about the really good trainers in your dog’s chosen sport. Even when talking with people jealous of the trainer’s success, you will learn something about that individual that may be helpful in making your selection.

Something else you may find useful in your decision making is to go to events at which the trainer has dogs entered. This will give you an opportunity to observe the dogs they are training and handling in action. You’ll want to see if the dog is happy doing the work and enjoying the sport. Does it do the job with a wagging tail or in a happy position eager to do the sport? Or does it slink along with its tail down or between its legs, obviously fearful or unhappy about what it’s going to be asked to do? Does the dog seem to like the pro who is handling it and want to please that person? Or does the dog appear to be doing the job only because it is afraid of what will happen if it doesn’t? All these observations are important if you plan to trust someone’s advice or, more importantly, let them actually do the training of your dog.

It’s wise to attend some of the events for your sport and ask others at that event what they know or have heard about a particular trainer.  

Once you have found who you think will be the right person to help you, and if you plan to participate in your dog’s training, the next step is to take advantage of the many books and DVDs that detail ways to train for your sport. But, again, this also needs more words of advice: Read and watch these resources, but don’t accept everything they say as gospel, because it’s not. Not everything they suggest is going to work with your dog. Every dog, regardless of breed, is an individual, and the worst mistake you can make is trying to fit your dog into a training “program.” There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all training program. While there have been dogs that earned the highest possible titles in these inflexible programs, a whole lot more have been either completely ruined by them or have required a long and expensive rehabilitation.

You know your dog’s temperament and personality better than anyone, or you should. So while you can get a lot of help finding the right techniques for your dog from these resources as well as from your mentor or your pro, ultimately, if you are going to do any of the dog’s training at all, it’s up to you to figure out what will work or won’t work with each dog.  

Something else that can be useful, especially as you progress to higher levels in a sport, is keeping an open mind when talking with successful trainers from dog sports other than the one you’ve chosen for your dog. You never know who might have a useful tip that will work with your dog. While all my dog training has been with Sporting dogs, specifically retrievers and pointing breeds, a good obedience trainer once gave me a tip that helped solve a vexing problem and I learned a couple of things from a herding trainer that have been very useful in teaching my retrievers to take and execute casts on blind retrieves. By the same token, I’ve had people whose main interest was obedience tell me that they learned a number of useful things from me about teaching their dogs to retrieve the dumbbells and gloves in the upper levels of that sport.

One of the purposes of all the dog sports is for both the dog and you to have fun.  

Once you start your dog in a sport and there has been ample opportunity to “get into” that activity, if the dog doesn’t seem to be having fun doing it, find something else for the two of you to do that the dog does like. One of the purposes of all the dog sports — including those designed to evaluate the dog’s ability to perform the breed’s historical function — is for both the dog and you to have fun. If one of the members of the team views training and testing/trialing for a sport as the equivalent of a root-canal procedure with no anesthesia, you are probably not going to be successful at it. So why torture yourself or the dog? There are lots of other things the two of you can do together that will be fun for both of you to do.  

There is something special about the bond that develops when you and your dog work together to achieve a qualifying score or a win in a performance sport. Success in a canine performance sport can be one of the more personally rewarding experiences you’ll ever have with your dog.