Lisa Schmit

Lisa is the owner of In The Zone, LLC. She is a Certified Canine Fitness Trainer, Certified Pet Massage Practitioner, Certified Canine Myo-Manipulative Functional Practitioner, Certified Animal Cold Laser Practitioner, and Certified Equine and Canine Kinesiology Tape Practitioner.  

Lisa has been doing agility for over 20 years and has been teaching it for over 15. She offers agility, conditioning, and massage seminars across the continent. Lisa teaches many online agility and fitness classes, and she puts on about 12 NADAC trials a year. 

Lisa is one of the most accomplished handlers in NADAC. Her consistent, clear positive approach to dog training is evident in her continued success with multiple dogs. Lisa has come home from the NADAC Championships with 10 trophies with 5 different dogs. She has finished in the Overall Top 3 at the NADAC Champs 22 times with 9 different dogs, including her Brittany and Aussie. Tandem, JP7, and Revolution earned the coveted Purple MODSQUAD (Master of Distance and Speed) award, which requires high-level distance handling and speed. Less than 25 dogs in the world have this award, and Lisa has three of them. JP7 and Tandem have also earned the Distance Cup Award. Tandem achieved the Silver Versatility Distance Cup, and JP7 earned the Purple Distance Cup - fewer than 10 dogs in the world have won each of these awards! Nine of her dogs have over 175 NATCH titles, with over 45 Speed Stars. Eight of her dogs have almost 200 Bonus Runs (these require big distance skills). Her dogs are consistently in the Top 10 every year and in most categories in the NADAC Hall of Fame. 

Lisa describes her teaching style as being "very methodical." She says, "I break skills down so that the handler and dog can learn and understand the cues. When creating videos for my classes, I use multiple dogs of different skill and speed levels so we can discuss the differences in handling.   I also have two little young rescue pups that are usually included in my videos so you can see how I start training skills with them.   I do screencasts of many of my videos so I can discuss, draw lines, and slow down the videos so I can explain things better." Lisa also provides detailed video review for working students; she does a similar analysis using screencasts. 

She adds, "The core of my training philosophy is based on solid foundation skills and consistent handling to motivate my dogs in a fun and positive way. I use a positive reward-based system of training and err on the side of rewarding too often than not enough. 

I believe groundwork and foundation skills are the building blocks to success. I train in short, fun sequences so I can train various handling options, push for distance, and reward often. I train skills and obstacles so that my dogs are confident in their ability to understand my cues and to perform obstacles, and understand [how to travel] the path between obstacles efficiently, at speed and at a distance. 

The goal of every one of my training sessions is to teach, reinforce, and reward my dog for understanding my cues. The goal of training is not to just run sequences or courses, not to just go from number to number, but to train my dog to understand my cues and reward my dog often. I train skills so that my dog is confident in their ability to understand and trust my cues to perform sequences efficiently

I am a huge foundation/skill-based trainer. I believe in teaching handlers and dogs to be consistent, clear, and crisp with their cues. I train in short training sessions with [usually just a few] obstacles. This way, I can reward often and work on very specific skills. I hardly ever do full courses. 

As a skill trainer, I focus on developing, refining, and rewarding my dogs for understanding my cues, obstacle performance, and handling moves. I believe groundwork and foundation skills are the building blocks to success."

For more information, go to www.inthezoneagility.com