Episode Details

SUMMARY:

Julie Symons has been involved in dog sports for over 20 years. She's competed in flyball, conformation, agility, obedience, herding, tracking and nosework.

One of Julie's favorite things is a versatile team! Her first Belgian Tervuren, Rival, was the first of his breed to finish his championship in conformation, obedience, and agility. Julie truly believes that participating in multiple sports is enriching to both person and dog and builds on that mutual partnership and trust.

Today we have Julie Symons, of the newly-named Savvy Dog Sports, to talk about handler discrimination and AKC scentwork.

Links

• Savvy Dog Sports

Next Episode:

To be released 12/8/2017, featuring Nancy Gigliardi Little. We'll be chatting about start line stays!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods.

Today we have Julie Symons, of the newly-named Savvy Dog Sports, to talk about handler discrimination and AKC scentwork.

Welcome back to the podcast, Julie!

Julie Symons: Hi Melissa. Thanks for having me back.

Melissa Breau: I'm excited to chat today. To start us out, do you mind just reminding listeners who you are a little bit and share the dogs you share your life with?

Julie Symons: I have Savvy, she's my 9-year-old Belgian Tervuren. Gosh, she's going to be 10 in February. She's doing great. She's a champion Mach2, UD, TDX, and recently a Nosework 3 Elite dog. She's retired from all sports except for nosework, and I keep meaning to work on my variable surface tracking with her. She's just a phenomenal tracking dog, so if I can just find that time. And I have Drac, who's my 2-year-old Malinois. He just turned 2 last month, and I'm waiting for him to mature a little bit and his hormones to settle, but he has his Nosework 1 and his Level 1 Interior, Container, and Vehicle titles from the Nosework Association of Canine Scentwork, and he also has his AKC Scentwork Novice title, which means he's earned all of his novice element other titles. He also has two legs toward his Handler Discrimination Scentwork title and his first Advanced legs in Containers, Interiors, and Exteriors, and he's actually really turning out to be a nice nosework dog. So it's been fun training him there. And since you mentioned Savvy Dog Sports, I'll share that I'm in process of building a training facility — on my property, actually. We have enough acreage out in the country. I've always wanted to do this. Back in probably the year 2000, I had thought about doing something like this. So we're going to start building in February and I'll be able to teach more dog stuff. There's, I think, opportunity and need in this area to offer some more obedience or pet classes, so I'm really looking forward to that. And then my nosework students, I'd like to be able to have more opportunities to train with them. So very, very excited.

Melissa Breau: And you said you're in Rochester, right? Rochester, New York.

Julie Symons: Right. I'm in a suburb of Rochester. I'm south of Rochester near the New York Thruway between Syracuse and Buffalo.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So if anybody listening is in that area, Julie's your new go-to person.

Julie Symons: Yes. So we'll be busy getting some more information out on that soon.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Last time you were on the podcast I know we talked a little about the AKC Scentwork. Since today I want to dive a little deeper there, do you mind just starting us out by sharing a little about how the program works?

Julie Symons: Yeah. The AKC Scentwork program has three divisions. They have their Odo