What They Were Bred To Do
An Inside Look at Protection Ring Sports and Livestock Herding
Welcome, friends, to the Hero Beside Me, the blog that celebrates and explores the professional and private lives of working dogs of all disciplines. I’m glad you’re here!
Today I share with you excerpts from a conversation I had with two ring sport dog handlers, Allison Seghetti and Kirsty Kucera, who compete with their Belgian Malinois in the sports of Mondioring and French Ring, respectively. Allison works as a decoy for her sport as well. During this conversation, we discuss ring sports, the nuances of being a decoy and also of being a handler, the bond that forges between a dog and handler, and how inspiring it is to watch a dog do what it was bred to do.
Kirsty also owns a small ranch and uses border collies to help her herd cattle, which we discussed in the second half of this conversation. She talked about the way herding breeds work, how different breeds are used for different purposes, and again, the bond between dog and handler. You can listen to the whole conversation in The Hero Beside Me Podcast.
*This interview was edited for clarity and length*
Welcome, ladies! Tell me a little bit about yourselves…tell us who you are, what you do for a living, and when your relationship with dogs began.
K: Hi, I’m Kirsty. I train rodeo horses, roping and barrel racing, for a living. My relationship with dogs started at a very, very young age. My mom trained field and trial golden retrievers, and I’ve always had a love for them. Moving forward with the ranch and having livestock and cattle and goats to move around, it pushed me more toward the herding breeds. And then, traveling a lot by myself, I got into the protection dogs.
A: Hi, my name is Allison Seghetti. I have been around dogs my whole life. Growing up, we had family pets, and I groomed dogs when I was young to support myself. I did some dog training things through a pet shop when I was younger. I have been involved in doing protection dog sports since the early 2000’s. I am an attorney by trade, which I basically just use to fund my passion for dogs and horses. I do dog training in my spare time, really more as a hobby. Occasionally, I will do it for friends and family, but most of it is around the sport dog world at this point.
I currently train in the sport of Mondioring, which translates to “world ring.” It’s actually a derivative of French Ring, which is a very popular dog protection sport in France. Mondioring was actually brought about through French Ring and another ring sport called Belgian Ring. The powers that be in Europe got together and decided to make a third ring sport called Mondioring that could be done universally. The idea behind it was if you did French ring or Belgian ring, you could also compete in the sport of Mondioring. French Ring, Belgian Ring, both of them started really as a breed selection competition in Europe. Ring sports are very popular in Europe; here in the U.S. [they’re] not nearly as popular, but you see French Ring here, you see Mondioring and a few other sports. There is no Belgian Ring here in the U.S. at this time.
For Mondio and French Ring, there are some differences, but in general, it’s a combination of obedience — the dog and handler on the trial field perform a series of obedience exercises — they then move to a series of jumping exercises, and then go into protection sports where the dog is sent to bite a bad guy or a bad girl who’s wearing a protective suit. Essentially, you’re testing the dog’s skills and courage. You’re testing your ability to train the dog and handle the dog. When it was used as a breeding program, obviously you wanted the dogs who could do it all. Now, it’s a lot more used for fun and not so much for breeding, but we still use it. The top dogs are often dogs who are also bred. French ring is very similar. There are some subtle differences.
K: French Ring is a lot more structured as far as the exercises. It’s always the same exercises, whether it’s in the obedience, the protection, or the jumping. Mondioring gets to use a lot of really cool accessories. They have themes to their trials. French is just very — French. Very strict, very precise. They really want to see the dogs operate as close to a robot as possible. And they just want very clean, precise movements from the dogs. They’re so picky about how the dog lays down — not just that they did the skill, but how the moved to lie down, how they moved to stand up, how they walk around, how they look at you. To me, that’s the biggest difference that I’ve seen between the two sports.
Is that why you’ve chosen French Ring? Does that appeal to you?
K: I chose French Ring because that’s what my dog excelled at. He’s very trainable. He’s not as driven for the protection part of it. He’s very people-pleasing, so he could be trained to a much [tigher] mold, and more precise. A lot of dogs don’t like that finesse, that nit-pickiness to it, they get frustrated. And that’s where the balance between the protection drive and the obedience is. You need a little less obedient dog for the protection but mine is on the more obedient side, so we can make everything fit together nicely that way.
A: A lot of clubs will offer both Mondioring and French Ring because the foundation work you do with the dog for the protection is basically the same. One of the main differences between Mondioring and French Ring is [that] in Mondioring, when the dog is biting the bad guy, the bad guy (we call them decoys), may not touch the dog. In French Ring, the decoy provides opposition to the dog by utilizing what we call the “clatter stick,” which is a bamboo stick. It makes a lot of noise. The decoy can hit the dog on the back with it. It’s not something that’s really painful, and it’s something that our dogs are used to. It’s really more of a noise and just some opposition. Most dogs, the way we train them, when they hear that, when they feel that it makes them more intent. They get really excited. When my dog hears the clatter stick, she goes insane. If I shook it right now, you would hear an explosion of barking and yelping because that means she’s about to bite — and our dogs, most of are dogs are bred, genetically — they want to bite. That’s what they’re bred for, that’s what their bloodlines are for. And from a very young age, we make it a game for them. It’s fun. Our dogs aren’t biting because they’re mad, they’re not biting because they’re stressed or angry. They’re like, “This is a game, we get to bite the bad guy. It feels good when we bite. When we hear that stick, it makes me bite harder, it makes me run faster.”
K: Their drive is not out of aggression or because they want to be mean or bad dogs. It’s the same type of drive that a lab has about putting a ball in their mouth or chasing a ball for hours every day, or hopping in the pool. It’s the same, but it’s just in a different area. These dogs, their drive is for using their teeth and using their mouths for stuff. And because the mouth is always associated with biting, that’s why we put so much time and effort into training them to make sure they are good go be around other people, good to be around other dogs. The commitment for just owning one is very, very intense, because they are 70, 75lbs on average, and they have a very intense drive.
Talk to us about the role of a decoy.
A: The purpose of the decoy is to provide opposition — it’s a courage test for the dog. In Mondioring, we use the stick in front of us to try and keep the dog from coming through it to bite; in French Ring, they do the same, but then once the dog is biting they can keep the dog engaged by actually striking the dog with the clatter stick.
K: It’s a lot harder than they make it look. There’s a lot more skill — I’ve never gotten in a suit, I’ve caught a dog on a sleeve and it’s blown me away…they’re called fur missiles for a reason. They are powerful. It’s amazing how much just their body weight coming at you, how strong they can be. The decoys have to be very highly trained, very athletic, very strong because if they hit them wrong, that force that the dog is committing to can give them spinal injuries, can hurt shoulders, hurt necks. A decoy can cripple a dog very easily in just one bite if they don’t do it correctly. So, it’s not just somebody jumping in a suit and looking like the Michelin Man. I wouldn’t allow my dog to go at anybody that just hops in a suit because, “Yeah, I’m not afraid to get bitten by a dog.” Because there’s so much more skill to it than that.
A: Usually, you have club decoys. The club we trained with, the guy in charge of it was a decoy in France, a very high-level decoy who came to the U.S. But that’s very rare — to have a decoy of that quality and that caliber in your club is very rare.
You have to want to do it. You’re like, “Yeah, I want to put on this suit, I want to see what it’s like to be on that side of it.” And you have dogs that are retired, or older dogs, and you learn. You have somebody that mentors you and shows you what to do and how to move…I mean, you just have to get out there and start doing it. For me, I was lucky enough to train with some incredibly high-level decoys on a regular basis, because of the clubs I was in. I also traveled all across the U.S. to work with different decoys. I traveled to Europe to work with decoys. When you’re learning…when you’re a “club decoy,” nobody pays you. You don’t get paid to do it; you pay other decoys to teach you. Or your club will host a seminar and bring in a really high-level decoy and you spend your time learning with that decoy.
Is there a separation between the world of sporting decoys and the world of law enforcement decoys?
I’ve done work with some police dogs. It’s completely different than ring dogs. I much prefer to work ring dogs over law enforcement dogs. There’s actually a decoy in northern California who also came from France who’s a really high-level French Ring decoy. He started working with the Oxnard Police Department and training their police dogs. He’s an extremely talented individual. He was able to use his skills as a ring sport decoy to teach those dogs not only to be exceptional canines, but they learned some different targeting. And you’ll hear people say, “Law enforcement dogs shouldn’t target a certain area of the body, they just need to take what’s available.” And these dogs do that, but you can actually see the dog making the decision as they’re coming in. I’ve had law enforcement dogs who want to bite arms, and I’ll put my arms behind my back and take that target away and I’ve actually had them come around my body, completely ignore my legs, just to get an arm. And that’s a dog who’s been inadvertently trained to target, whereas the dogs that this guy trained will target what’s available, but the best available spot, which is really neat to see. There’s a huge divide between law enforcement training and ring sport training. Our dogs in ring sport generally are trained to target legs, most law enforcement dogs are trained to target upper body. And you work the dogs a little differently. In law enforcement you usually bring a little bit more pressure in different ways. Because when you’re in a suit, looming over a dog and the dog is biting you, you’re using spatial pressure, you’re using the pressure of your clatter stick, you’re using the pressure of your hands, your facial expression — you’re bringing all of those things to it.
My job as a decoy is to get your dog to stop biting me in trial, in a competition. In training, I’m encouraging your dog. You also have to build the dog to where they can take that pressure, because in the highest levels of competition, you have decoys who will bring a tremendous amount of pressure and you need to make sure your dog can handle it.
I’m a CrossFit athlete, and that is what allows me to decoy. You have to be strong. I mean, there’s people who will put on a suit who are excellent decoys who are not in the best shape, but most of them are big dudes. I’m 5 foot 4, I weigh 140lbs, I fight dogs that come running at me at over 30 miles an hour that weigh 75lbs.
In both handling and decoying, you’re reading dogs. As a handler, I am training my dog, I’m shaping my dog, teaching it, preparing the dog to handle all of those exercises, to handle the bit work. But again, you have to read your dog. You have to know when your dog is distracted, you have to know when your dog is focused. You have to know when you’re going to lose your dog. When we say “lose your dog” — you’re out there in the ring with nothing on your dog. What’s keeping your dog next to you? If my dog sees a tug toy that’s her very favorite toy in the world and it’s ten feet from her and we’re walking by it and I see her look at it, as a handler, I have to know, “Oh, man, she’s going to go for that toy, I need to do something to distract her. I need to reward her, I need to get her focus back on me.” And that’s in a training situation.
As a decoy, you’re reading a dog — and there’s a difference between training decoys and trial decoys. As a trial decoy your job is to oppose the dog. You are there to try and keep the dog from biting you to take points from the dog. So, if it’s a competition, your dog gets x amount of points for going down to bite, for the way they bite, when you call the dog back for them letting go and coming back to you. As a decoy, I can take points from that dog by keeping them from biting me, by using my opposition to keep the dog from biting me. As a training decoy, you’re teaching the dog, “You’re going to get this opposition, but you can work through it. Don’t pay attention to the man in the suit, bite the leg. If you don’t see the leg, we’re going to teach you to bite the arm.” Because there’s different exercises where you use things so the dog can’t see your arms or can’t see your legs. A good training decoy reads every dog that comes to him or her and understands what that dog needs to make them strong. Good training decoys are worth their weight in gold because they understand [that] what works for Kirsty’s dog may not work for Allison’s dog, and vice versa. You have to figure out what builds that dog, what teaches that dog to be strong. How do you make that dog confident? How do you make your dog come on the field and say, “I can kick that decoy’s ass?” Because at the end of the day, that’s really what it is.
Most of the people who do ring sport are dog trainers. For some of us it’s a hobby. I have a full-time job that has nothing to do with dogs, it’s my hobby. Kirsty has a full-time job that has nothing to do with dogs. So, it’s a hobby. But most of the people involved in this are dog trainers. They’re working with dogs every single day. They’re training dogs, training a variety of dogs. As a handler, it benefits me hugely to also be a decoy, because I’ve learned a whole new way to read a dog. I’m able to prepare my dog a little bit differently because I have that other angle to look at. So, for me, it’s a benefit. And as a decoy, it helps to also be a handler, because I know what handlers teach their dogs. It gives you a different way to read a dog, and for somebody who’s not a dog trainer, who doesn’t do it every day, that’s two different ways I learn to read dogs. And you learn [that] as a decoy, you better figure it out pretty quick, otherwise you’re going to get your butt handed to you over and over and over again. And yeah, we’re protected by suits, but you get pressure. You still feel the pressure of those bites.
What’s your favorite part of ring sports? What keeps you coming back for more?
A: For me, it’s the relationship with my dog, and watching that culminate in what we do. Mondioring, French Ring, any ring sport you do with your dog is an incredible time commitment. That’s your hobby. You don’t really have time to do other stuff. Every weekend I’m training my dog. Every free weeknight I’m working out or I’m training my dog. And the relationship you build with your dog and the communication you have with your dog is incredibly rewarding. When we’re actually in competition, your dog goes in naked, you don’t have a collar on your dog, you don’t have a leash on your dog. You’re allowed to give one command at the start of the exercise then you can’t talk to your dog.
K: There’s no rewards, no treats, no pets, no “good dog;” it’s one skill after the other. Very rigid, very precise.
A: And there’s three different levels in both Mondioring and French Ring, so as the levels progress, the length of the program gets longer. So, level three, which is the hardest level, can be 45 minutes to an hour, and that’s of you communicating with your dog doing some things that it really loves and being able to call your dog back to you, giving one command. It’s incredible to spend the time training these things and then watching a dog be able to execute [them]. And yeah, it’s helpful to be a good trainer, to be very clear with your dog, but at the same time, your dog is the one who’s doing it. We showed him how, but you have to rely on your dog to do those things, and at the end of the day, going out and watching somebody do that with their dog is incredible. It’s incredible to watch that relationship…Belgian Malinois are incredible athletes, incredible. And when you see them do the things that they’re bred to do, it is amazing. It’s amazing to watch. It really is.
K: I really do like the relationship it builds between dog and handler. With my dog, my favorite look when I’m training him is after he’s recalled from biting the decoy. And the look on his face as he gets within fifteen, twenty feet of me is just like, “Yeah, I got them! I protected.” He comes right next to me, he looks up like, “I did good!” He’s so expressionate about that. You can just see the joy just popping out of his fur. He’s so happy that he was able to go do that. It’s fun asking them to do all this intricate stuff…they just absolutely love knowing they did a good job on decoy work.
If someone was interested in getting involved in ring sports, where should they go?
A: For Mondioring, you can go to the USMRA website, that’s the United States Mondioring Association: https://www.usmondioring.org/. I’m contactable through that website through the decoy committee. You can also search clubs in your area from the United States Mondrioring Association website. There are a lot of people who would be happy to help somebody who’s interested. We are trying to grow our sport in the United States, so if anyone has any questions, get in touch, let us know.
Readers, if you would like to hear more of this conversation, you can check it out on The Hero Beside Me Podcast, available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The podcast and this blog are companions to a photography project of the same name by photographer Shana T. You can find all of this by visiting herobeside.me.
