Clean Run - September 2019 - 5

Bounce Back
By Brenna Fender

Summer vacation is over, and it's back to school for kids everywhere! In the early days of agility, competitors in some
areas of the US took summers off too. All trials were outdoors in the sun, and with high temperatures and off-thechart humidity, a break was a no-brainer. Summer was the
time to get up early and work a few skills or go to class after
the sun went down; to fix the things that "broke" during
the season, learn new skills, regroup, and rest. Summer also
gave competitors a chance to miss competing a bit, which
has some advantages as well.
In northern states, the same was true in winter. Once it started snowing, the season was over. Your training was confined
to small indoor training centers (full-sized indoor rings were
mostly unheard of back then).
Today's year-round agility may be a mixed blessing. On the
one hand, the sport has evolved significantly, but dogs may
not have the time to rest and heal from the rigors of athletic
performance, contributing to more serious injuries. And
handler burnout wasn't something that happened when you
attended five trials a year, but it can be a real thing when you
go to 25, 50, or more.
While the exhaustion of weekends spent traveling, setting
up, trialing, and breaking down certainly contributes to handler burnout, there are other factors that can make agility
"less fun" than it used to be. Sometimes those factors have
little to do with the sport-family problems, work stressors,
and money woes can make it harder to enjoy an agility trial.
But sometimes it's the sport itself that wears us down. Difficulty qualifying at a particular level can be a significant cause
as can a repeating problem that you can't seem to fix despite
a lot of trying.
Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties.
Mental resilience indicates adaptability, the "toughness" it
takes to bounce back from disadvantages or adverse circumstances. In this issue, Bobbie Bhambree discusses building
mental resilience in dogs to have a more successful agility
performance. We sometimes call this bounce back. When
something negative happens, and a dog can quickly recover

from the situation without having any repercussions, you say
that the dog has good bounce back. Bobbie's article about
dogs is fascinating, and it made me wonder if people ever
think about their own resilience in agility (and in life). How
does how our bounce back, or lack thereof, impact our experiences and enjoyment of the sport. How much does lack of
resilience factor in burnout?
I have been writing this editorial on my way to and from my
daughter's gymnastics national championships. My kid could
give lessons in mental resilience, having fought her way to
the national level in one sport only to have to give it up after
an accident. She started trampoline and tumbling "late" as
a result, but at the end of her first year of competition, she
managed exceptional placements (and a podium finish) at
the nationals. At 12 years old, she's tough stuff when it comes
to her determination to succeed in things that matter to her,
but how does she do it? As Bobbie indicates in her article,
some resilience comes from a genetic predisposition, and
that may be a factor, but training mental toughness works.
Doing small hard things on a regular basis and succeeding
builds confidence for tackling big things and a tolerance for
the discomfort and difficulty of doing so.
If you have lost some of your love of agility trials, the first
thing to consider is if you even want to get it back. It's okay
to move on to new pursuits, but if you miss the sport, think
about what has gotten you down on agility. How can you
change it? Can you try a new organization, alter your expectations, trial on a less frequent basis, tackle a recurring training problem, or make some other adaptation? How can you
bounce back?
Thank you for letting Clean Run magazine be a part of your
agility training and trialing experience. We hope you enjoy
the September issue!

Brenna Fender

Brenna Fender is a freelance writer and editor who works for Clean Run. She lives in Florida with her husband, two children, a Papillon (Spark), a Beagle (Wrigley), a
Border Collie (Tessa), her daughter's Chihuahua (Chase), and a variety of other creatures. Tessa has agility titles, UpDog Challenge disc achievements, and a Trick Dog
Champion Title. Over the years, Brenna's dogs have been titled in conformation, agility, Junior Hunter, Junior Courser, rally, obedience, and Canine Good Citizen. Brenna
can be reached at brennafender@gmail.com and you can visit her website at brennafender.com.
September 19 | Clean Run

http://www.brennafender.com

Clean Run - September 2019

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