Move with Purpose: Mastering Body Communication in Dog Training

In Episode 3 of the Kaizen Doggie Dojo Podcast, host Trevor Smith explores the second pillar of dog training: The Body.
Great training isn’t just mental—it’s physical. Your dog reads your every move: shoulders, pace, posture. Whether you're on an agility course or walking through your neighborhood, your body language matters.

This episode dives into:

• How your movement shapes your dog’s response
• Handling style differences for calm vs. energetic dogs
• Warm-up drills for injury prevention and focus
• Fitness and rest for you as a handler
• The “flow state” of synchronized movement between you and your dog
• A body-based Kaizen challenge to get you moving with awareness

If you've ever felt out of sync with your dog or want to train with more presence and energy, this episode is for you.

Challenge of the Week: Choose one physical habit to practice every day for 7 days. (e.g., warm-up with your dog, stay hydrated, practice posture during drills)

📌 Podcast Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction & Kaizen Recap
01:00 - The Body: Pillar Two of Dog Training
02:30 - Dogs Respond to Your Movement
04:15 - Handling Styles Across Dogs
06:00 - Walkthroughs, Pressure & Intention
07:20 - Dog Warm-Ups & Conditioning
08:30 - Handler Self-Care: Sleep, Hydration & Progress
09:50 - Flow State & Rhythm in Training
10:40 - Weekly Challenge & Final Thoughts

Tune in weekly for new episodes that blend practical dog training tips with mindset, philosophy, and inspiration. Let’s grow together, one step at a time.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the Dokey Dojo podcast, where we train the whole team, and not just the dog, and not just the human, the human, and the dog. Together. I'm Trevor Smith, and if you've been following this journey, you already know where we are going with this, that we don't do shortcuts. We're gonna go through the process of kaizen, which means intentional, meaningful progress, one. Step at a time. In episode one, we focused on the foundation of the mind and body and heart, and in the last episode, we dove deeply into the mind learning to train ourselves with awareness, curiosity, and clarity. But today I'm gonna go a different direction, and that is we're gonna be stepping into the second pillar, which is probably just as important, but very often overlooked. That pillar is the body. So talk training. Isn't just a mental game, it's a physical one too. In every cue, in every reward, in every move you make, your dog is watching it all. They're reading your shoulders, they're reading your feet, they're reading your posture and your pace, and that is something that I've been dealing with and struggling with a lot. My agility training and training your dog isn't about just teaching behaviors. It's shaping how they move, where they carry tension, and how long they can focus and how well they can recover. When we train the body, we unlock a state of flow with our dog. When we build stamina and we improve that communication and we prevent injury, we are really improving our teamwork together with our dog. And the body is all about moving with purpose. Let's start at first with the body when it comes to the handler, and every time you train, your dog is tracking every movement. Even more than just your words. They're looking at everything you're doing with your body. Dogs are true masters of body language. They use that to communicate with each other all the time. If you lean forward, suddenly, like in agility, you put too much pressure on the dog, and if you pull back, you disengage that pressure. If you walk with confidence, they'll. Walk with confidence with you. But like in agility, when you hesitate with your commands, they tend to hesitate with you as well. So you're communicating with your dog whether you're using your words or with your body. And the key to this is to become intentional with your movement. Your body is constantly communicating whether you realize it or not. So here's the key. Become intentional with your movement. This is something that's been hammered into me, particularly the last six months with my newer two agility scene. Disney. He's been competing for about a year now. But something the last six months I've been really working on is being more intentional with Disney. I, uh, sometimes am hesitant and I'm not really clear with my commands. And this stemmed from working with my dog, sushi, my dog sushi, my French bulldog. She was really calm, really shy, and it took a lot to bring out of her. And if I overdid my pressure and I was too much for her, she would shut down. So that transferred to my dog Disney, who's a border Collie, and he's just all about that intensity and that intentional. Nature with my movement, and it's really important for me to draw that out into my training. And so putting two different hats on with two different handling styles with my dogs has been a challenge and something I've learned deeply on how my body, not just my verbals and what I say to my dog, really makes a difference in my dog's performance. So I want you to try this when you give a cue, plant your feet. Face your dog. Use consistent hand signals. Be clean with those hand signals. Be calm with those hand signals. Practice walking your dog while keeping your shoulders relaxed and keeping your pace steady. And when you're doing your walkthroughs and agility, same thing. Just be practice being. Calm and intentional. You're leading them with your movement, and it's important that you kind of focus on what you're doing. You know, when I do a walkthrough and a dog agility, I will sometimes go through the obstacles and what order they're in, but I also want to walk with my intentionality with my body. Whether your dog is like a couch potato. Or a sport competitor, though their body needs strength, flexibility, and recovery just like ours. Let's talk about the dog's body for a second here. And dog sports are fun, but they're also very physically demanding and even obedience and rally and trick training can put strain or joints and muscles when done repetitively without much warmups. When we're thinking about our dog's body, we have to think about a few different questions. Are we preparing them to perform properly? Giving them time to recover or help them build the strength they need and their body awareness to do what they need to do. Like can they physically do the contact that we're asking 'em to do in dog agility or the sit pretty training they're asking them to do for a dog trick. Now, I want you to try a few things. One of these things I'm about to say forward doing any activity with your dog. Before warming 'em up, maybe do like five spins to the left and five spins to the right, or maybe get them to put their front paws up on an object. For core strength, you can also use like cavalletti poles to help with coordination or teaching 'em to back up to activate the rear end and their brain connecting together. Just a few minutes of this can help for a few ways. One, prevent injury. It could be improving performance, but also helping your dog tune into their body and into yours. When your dog is kind of figuring things out, warming themself up on the go and on the flat, it can be really hard to get them to focus on what you need them to do in that moment for a trick or a dog agility performance. Now we've got the side of the team with the dog. Let's talk about the human. When it comes to training, it takes energy, and when your body is exhausted or feeling tense or maybe out of alignment, your training and your performance can suffer. This is why Kaizen, when it comes to body, is so important. When it comes to honoring your health. Are you regularly moving outside? Are you getting enough sleep so you can stay focused? Are you hydrated? That's a simple one that we can do so that way we can be present when working with our dogs. This doesn't mean we need to become a big. Arnold Schwarzenegger, bodybuilder, but it also means that we're honoring that physical partnership between our dogs and us because when you feel better with your body, you show up better. When it comes to training, and I've seen this a lot in the last couple years. I went from 220 pounds done to 180, and now I've kind of creeped back up to one 90, and I've started to kick off this podcast for, this is one of my main catalysts of doing that because the reasoning is, is that. I need this just as much as you guys do. I need to focus on developing my mind, my body, and my heart when it comes to training. And I wanted to show you my thoughts and my journey as we go through this podcast together. And so I'm also be giving some tips as well. I have found that, that, uh, it is a true kaizen experience. You can't change everything all at once. Sometimes we try to change way too much. We eat a lot less food. We work out a ton more, and when we don't have enough food in our body, we don't have enough fuel to do those workouts. We really wanted to do so. It does take a little bit of like 1%, one step at a time mentality when it comes to getting ready and getting our body together. And when it comes to dog agility, this sport is really a true sport now, not just for the dog, but for the human as well. I wanna be the best for my dog. I wanna be an inspiration to my daughter. So that's why I started developing my body and becoming. Better and better in shape. So I'm gonna bring my insights and my journey along the way and give you that feedback of what's happening so you can, guys can find some success too. And one of the beautiful parts about training, especially in sports like agility, when all this comes together, it feels like a magic happens. It's like you're not thinking about every cue, you're just moving together. There's a rhythm, there's a joy, there's a connection with your body. Have you ever felt this when doing training or running with your dog? It's just so amazing. And here's the secret to that. That kind of flow doesn't happen by chance. It's built over time. One step at a time with repetition and awareness, and you can create flow a few different ways. One, moving at a consistent pace with your dog training in small chunks and then linking them together, breathing, like literally breathing while training going. Ah, practicing those drills, practicing building rhythm, practicing your front crossing, healing patterns in the mirror. Flow is not about being perfect, it just means being present. And when you train from your body, not just your mind, you and your dog begin to move as one. If you train your dog physically better and helping their mind to be better, and your body and your mind being better together, it just becomes synergistic and it becomes something. Truly amazing, and you want that with your dog. You want to feel that with your dog. And to get you kickstarted, let's go ahead and give you some ideas. Pick one body based habit and practice it intentionally every day. That could be drinking more water. It could also be doing a little warmup together with you and your dog doing the three minute warmup with your dog before doing some training or going on a walk. It could be just. Tuning in with your dog, spending five minutes practicing a training pattern while focusing on your body and your posture and your movement. It could be going on one 15 minute movement break per day with yourself. A walk a stretch, uh, just breathing with intention. Just pick one. Choose one and stick with it for seven days and then reflect on it. See how you can learn. Um, how did this affect me? How did this affect my dog's behavior? How did it affect my energy and mood? Did you notice any? New patterns, new things, new insights, then share your progress with me. I love to hear about it. You can do so by tagging at the Doggy Dojo on social media, and also you can use the hashtag life with your dog hashtag so that way I can see, I know the whole Doggy Dojo crew wants to cheer you on, so just share it with me. Send me a message if you wanna just kind of do it privately. I love to know more about what you're doing with you and your dog. Mind and body are two halves of the same whole, and when you move with purpose, you invite your dog to do the same. So don't rush this process. Honor your rhythm, celebrate that progress, because kaizen isn't just about learning, it's also about just living, living life with your dog. And next week we'll explore more on the next one, which is heart. Trust, emotion. That kind of a little invisible thread that ties everything together. I can't wait for next week's episode. And if you wanna know more about that, feel free to subscribe to this podcast. So make sure don't miss a single beat. Subscribe to this podcast here on YouTube or whatever you're listening to. Until then, just remember, move one mindful step at a time. Thanks for being here and let's grow together. As always, have some fun with your dogs and we'll see y'all next time. Bye.