Canine Culture

10/22/2026

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐒 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐩!

🧐Your dog doesn’t read the course map. Your handling IS the map. Was there a late cue? A drifting arm? A moment of hesitation?

What felt obvious to you may have told your dog a completely different story. Watch your next training video in slow-motion with one question in mind:

“What did my information REALLY tell my dog to do?”

That’s where better teamwork begins. 🐾

10/19/2026

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐀𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚?

🤔 I really want to know about competition environments. Is it friendly, welcoming, fun and inclusive? Is it uptight, stand-offish, and unwelcoiming? Is there bullying? Do you get a sense of community where you trial? Also, I want to know what you think are the factors influencing human behavior at competitions. What makes the competitions good, bad or whatever.

I know! I have so many questions because I'm working on a future episode of the Agility Culture Podcast. If you don't want to comment, reach out with a DM.

10/16/2026

𝟑𝟐 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐮𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐮𝐧: 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐠?

Is your pre-run routine carefully preparing your dog? Is it winding them up or stressing them out? In this episode of the Agility Culture Podcast, Laura explores how warm-ups, waiting ringside, reward games, and handler nerves shape your team’s readiness. Discover what the Yerkes–Dodson Law and canine arousal research can teach us about finding the balance between enthusiasm and focus, with practical ideas for more thoughtful, connected performance. WATCH wherever you get your podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/episode/0MgGupG29DMPXHQOFC0LKU?si=FnABAJ08Rsu_jjo6FcSpdg

Agility Culture · Episode

10/13/2026

𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐠, 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐞𝐝.

🤔 More speed? Look at confidence.
More consistency? Look at clarity.
More focus? Look at arousal.
More connection? Look at the information you provide.

The missed jump, broken start line, or distracted run gives you something to investigate. Get curious andl ook for patterns. Review videos. You are videoing everything, right? Armed with objective data, you can now build the skills that help your dog succeed.

Great agility grows from a team that understands each other. 💜

What are you and your dog working on right now? Tell me below! 👇

10/09/2026

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬? By the time you enter the ring, you've already had a "run".

You know, the "pre-run". What's yours like? Some folks have elaborate skills the dog does outside the ring, on the start line. Sometimes there's frantic tugging, sometimes there's nothing. The question is: has that experience helped prepare your team for the run? Or have you unintentionally made things harder?

Our goal is to create a useful transition into the ring for our team. The routine that gets the dog and handler into Peak Performance. That's the right about of arousal to deliver the best performance.

Think about your most recent competition. Picture the five or ten minutes before one of your runs. What did your dog do? What did you do? And what did your team look like when you reached the start line? And lastly how did that run go? I would love to hear your experiences in the comments.

10/07/2026

💜🩷💜

10/04/2026

𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. Repetition is a part of learning. But the value of a repetition depends on what happens during it.

A productive repetition gives the dog a useful opportunity to practice the skill we're trying to teach. The setup makes sense and our information is clear. The dog has a reasonable chance of succeeding and reinforcement will support the skill.

A less productive repetition might simply replay the same confusion for the dog. If the dog continues to "not get it right", more repetitions of the same set-up likely won't help. Change something. The dog is giving YOU valuable feedback.

If you keep practicing the same problem under the same conditions, without understanding why it's happening, you can spend a lot of time working and very little time moving forward.

The questions is: "What does my dog need to learn how to do this well?"

Intentional training is when you stop collecting repetitions and start collecting information. Making adjustments for thoughtful training progressions are how highly reliable skills are developed.

Often progress starts when you break it down into a small piece so the dog understands. That doesn't mean keeping training easy forever. It means building challenge deliberately.

10/01/2026

𝟑𝟏 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫

When agility progress stalls, adding more training can be tempting, but is it what your team needs? In this episode of the Agility Culture Podcast, Laura explores when clearer communication, better reinforcement, emotional readiness, physical recovery, or a stronger handler mental game can make the difference. Learn how to train with intention, recognize what’s missing and choose a more productive next step for you and your dog.

Agility Culture · Episode

09/30/2026

📣What if your dog agility training could go beyond the next skill?

The brand new Canine Culture website is here and I'm pretty excited about it 🥳 . It captures what I've been doing for decades: helping agility teams train the whole picture. Dog agility skills, handler skills, ring resiliency, canine fitness and mental game performance.

💫 Private Online Coaching
💫 Dog Agility Seminar Offerings
💫 Online Dog Agility Classes
💫 Canine Fitness
💫 Mindset Coaching

Come take a look at what it means to build a truly exceptional dog agility team. You might discover something that changes the way you train.

Fresh Innovations with lasting impacts in dog agility.

Training Solutions for Every Dimension of Competition Dog Agility with Laura Bussing, CPDT, CCFT, CASPC

07/06/2026

Arena prep for this week's agility lessons at my place in Salida, CO. This is my Dirt Engineer, aka hubby, Tony 🚜. He loves mowing the dirt, as he calls it 🤣