Ryan and Matt Do Clicker Expo Reno

What do Matt Damon and Ryan Gosling have in common (aside from being good looking celebrities, I mean)? They both showed up at ClickerExpo – Reno 2016. Matt Damon helped Susan Friedman drive home the point for one of her talks, while Ryan Gosling helped Hannah Branigan and I explain and motivate dog trainers to use Triple Planning to build better dog training classes.

There was much running around, rehearsing presentations [or as I like to call it finishing the damn presentation], meeting up with friends seen only once each year at Expo, and shopping. There was also lots of learning. It’s always been hard to choose between talks at Expo, but it seemed almost impossible to get to everything I wanted to see this year. I needed another two or three me’s if I really wanted to cover every talk that appealed to me.

Ken Ramirez kicked off Expo talking about training butterflies and spiders. I’ll stick to man’s best friend, thankyouverymuch. Although, if I could train the spiders to stay outside, I guess that might be a worthwhile effort. Hannah Branigan’s talk in which she painted dogs was fascinating. If anyone can examine something to the degree of a gnat’s eyebrow, it’s Hannah.

Susan Friedman talked about a million fascinating things. I would listen to that woman read the phone book, honestly. Her voice is calm and soothing, I feel like everything’s going to be alright when she’s talking. She covered the stuff that really makes you think, like Functional Analysis: The Sexy Side of ABC. And she included Matt Damon in her talk. Can anyone ask for more?

I talked about a lot of business-ey things because that’s what I love — making a living teaching dogs and their people. There was a quick session describing why niche marketing might be something to help R+ dog trainers get more clients who are (1) willing to use the clicker right out of the gate and (2) understand the value of your services.

Two seconds after that talk was over, I was on stage with Hannah Branigan (and Ryan Gosling, naturally) talking about Triple Planning. It was my first co-presenting gig. It could’ve been way worse, but thank goodness Ryan was there to make everything alright. We had a good turnout (but we know Ryan was the star, not us) and hopefully enough Ryan’s went home with the attendees that they’re already making a difference with their new Triple Plans.

I brought my dad along with me to Reno. He spent most of the days playing the card tables while I was getting my geek on in the conference sessions. My dog training life overlapped with my family life a little when my dad declared he’d like to come hear one of my talks. It was a bit odd looking out from my percha as a dog trainer/speaker and seeing family there, but it was reassuring all at the same time. Apparently one talk was all he could handle, though, as he spirited off as soon as I finished my talk. He did give me a thumbs up, but hey, he’s my dad. He had to say that.

The west is beautiful country. Here’s the sunrise from the hotel one morning.

My dad and I took off on a day adventure to Virginia City. It was incredible! On the way up, we left this (that’s Reno in the valley)

And went through this on our way up the mountain.

We arrived in Virginia City and I immediately wanted to take this mule home with me.

All kinds of places to visit in an old mining town like Virginia City.

It’s an authentic (touristy) old west town complete with saloons and “front street.”

I didn’t find any spare gold or silver lying around.

A week away was a long, long time. I wrote this on the airplane en route to Baltimore, MD. It was another 36 hours before I made it home, but I’m thrilled to announce that we managed to outfox the Reno Plague (Noro virus) and were one of the few lucky escapees who made it out vomit-free.