Upcoming courses

In this class, we will work specifically to have third parties perform care such as the veterinarian, osteopath or groomer.

It is intended for people who have completed Level 1 and who want to translate the techniques learned to the care done by professionals (the foundations of cooperative care will not be re-explained, your dog must master consent behaviors before entering this class).

Veterinary visits are often anxious times for our dogs and for us as well.

Knowing that your dog is going to be stressed at the clinic prompts many pet owners to postpone care. The objectives of this class will be to make these visits more enjoyable for our dogs so that their emotional well-being is also taken into account in the care, not just their physical well-being.

Among other things, we will discuss how:

• Make clinic visits enjoyable.
• Prepare your dog in case of hospitalization.
• Generalize your co-operative care skills in other environments.
• Prepare for the most common veterinary care.
• Working with a third party.
• Work in collaboration with your clinic.

But if you haven’t started such training yet, nothing is lost!

We have created a package especially for you that will lead you from the beginning to a cooperative training at the vet.

Add the Empowered dogs course: Cooperative husbandry at the vet *PART2* and Empowered dogs: Cooperative husbandry training course *PART1* to the cart and enter the code HUSBANDRY

 You will get a 10% discount on both courses 🙂

Start cooperative training today! Your dog will thank you for it.

What does a confident canine look like? Close your eyes and try and imagine a dog that is bold, confident, sure of himself. Secure in his own paws, knowing that the world is a great place to be a dog: friendly people everywhere, lots of places to sniff and dig and roll around and a bunch of good friends to spend his time with. A dog that runs fast, plays with enthusiasm, and lights up when you suggest you´ll go on adventure together.

Then try and imagine the opposite, a dog lacking in confidence. A dog that finds the world a rather scary and unsure place, where dangers lurk behind every corner and smells, sounds, people and dogs are just too much. A dog that might just want to stay in and cuddle instead of exploring new things.

There are dogs of both kinds, and most dogs are somewhere in between – finding lots of things enjoyable and some things scary. Luckily confidence can be increased and in this course we focus on letting the dogs explore their  braveness thru games such as scent work, trick training, problem solving, balance and body awareness and enrichment.

The Canine Confidence course will expand on these subjects and we will dig deeper into all these subjects:

• Building trust and make your shy dog training savvy, by giving him a choice in the matter, and ways to say yes and no to training, being able to ask how to take a break and getting him to love training in the process.
• Exploring different reinforcers – both treats and toys that you can keep in your pocket and those that are already in the environment.
• Using shaping, scent work, problem solving skills, balance games and body awareness to boost confidence.
• Building enrichment into your dogs daily routine, giving him an outlet to be a dog without the influence of the human.

A dog that is lacking confidence can:

– have a hard time in everyday life with fear of noises, new things, people, dogs etcetera
– have a hard time solving problems on his own
– show aggressive tendensies towards people or dogs
– get performance anxiety in sports
– can look like he lacks motivation for training when he is really just worried to make a misstake
– be difficult to leave with a dog sitter and also difficult to bring to new places
– can get stress related health issues

So what are the benefits of training these things? A confident dog will often have an easier time with everyday challenges such as meeting new things, people and be braver when meeting new environments. He might also perform better in competitions and formal training sessions since he is less worried about sounds, movement etcetera and has the confidence to run fast, try new things and thoroughly enjoy himself. How great is that?

The course includes:

• Build interest in the reward
• Are you ready? – Start buttons for training
• What about the monster? – how to act when something scary appears
• Noice games
• Movement is fun!
• Balance
• Body awareness
• Trick training as a confidence booster
• Scent work
• The importance of enrichment

If your dog struggles with reactivity or shyness, or is fearful of people, objects and new environments it can be hard sometimes to get to formal training sessions or even take your dog on a walk among other dogs or people. By boosting the confidence, and not at all focus on the problem itself, you will give your dog a better chance to have a fun and enjoyable time with you and might also decrease the problematic emotions and behavior in all aspects of life.

This course is for shy and fearful dogs, but also for young dogs that need that extra socialization, old dogs that might have changes in their senses such as eyes and ears and therefore need a boost in confidence but can actually be a boost for everyone.

We will focus on fun games that can be played at home or on walks, and you will learn new and creative ways to help your dog in everyday life.

Lesson 1: foundations

Lesson 2: Tricks for confidence, balance and body awareness

Lesson 3: Noice and movement

Lesson 4: Scent work in different ways

Lesson 5: Brain games and problem solving games

Lesson 6: Enrichment – Netflix for dogs

This course’s focus is the first part of the retrieve exercise in obedience trial, we will work on the grab, hold, and movement with the dumbbell. Before we go into details, accessories, first exercise, we need to go through the rulebook.

The rulebook for FCI obedience consists of guidelines and point systems for each exercise.

We will analyze what needs to do to score 10/10 for retrieve exercise in class 1.

For the upcoming six weeks I want us to focus on:

• Shaping “calm” and “strong” grab and hold behavior.
• by calm I mean: one movement of grabbing and closing mouth on an object. What we don’t want is: chewing, correcting the grip of the dumbbell in the mouth (rolling with tongue).
• by strong, I mean: with the strength that makes it impossible for a handler to move the dumbbell while the dog is holding it.
• Shaping grab from a variety of dumbbell positions:
  – our hand
  – both our hands
  – nose height
  – ground height but with handler holding it
  – on the floor
• Building distance
• Variation in handler position
• Adding movement to grab and hold behavior (final behavior heel set-up)
• Object generalization
• Delivery and release to hand
• Adjusting correct reinforcement protocol for your dog and retrieve behavior

  To take this course as a Premium Member you need to finish Trainer’s Toolbox first (as Premium or Auditor)

This is a course for you, if you want to work with your dog on getting a large behaviors repertoire, and rely on as little helping tools as possible.

In this course we will work with breaking down all the things you would like your learner to able to do, into single behaviors. We focus on developing multiple of the skills you and your learner need, to teach them exactly what you dream off.

We do this by shaping and capturing behaviors, and we work with them off cue, to make sure we get the exact behavior.

The focus of this course is to get the learner started on offering behaviors. We will try to build a big repetoire of behaviors, so that our learners get creative and become an very active part of our training.

If you want to start all the behaviors this course covers, there is going to be quite a lot of work – so be prepared for that.

The behaviors we will cover in this course are:

• Focus
• Targeting
• Sit
• Backing
• Heel position
• Recall
• Heeling
• Down
• Stand
• Stay
• Doggie-zen
• Hold it
• Release
• Bark
• Jump
• Search

Under each behavior box, there are several behaviors. We will go through a few of them, and you are always free to chose which behaviors you would like to focus on.

We will also discuss the topics of:

• Off cue
• Fluency
• Doggie-zen
• Cues

Pocket it! This course focus will be working without treats in hand and helping as little as possible, without leaving your animal frusrated.

We give the learner the highest rage of choice we can, and teach the learner to actively take part in the training.

This will be part 1, where you get introduced to all of the behaviors, and then select 1 to work with from every box.  In vol. 2, we will work more on fluency and adding variations to the behaviors.

This course is suitable for you, if you would like your dog to offer you more behaviors and like to shape them in the direction you want. If you already have all the above behaviors off cue, part 2 would be a suitable option for you.

You struggle to groom your dog without having him mouth the brush ?

You can’t cut his nails ?

Your dog is running away as soon as you pronounce “shower” ?

Your dog stresses out so much at the clinic or at the groomer that he trembles, shuts down or tries to escape ?

You have to care for your dog and it’s complicated to do it alone at home ?

Your dog doesn’t like to put the collar, harness, muzzle or cone ?

You want your dog to be stressfree and cooperate with him in all sorts of care procedures ?

You want to improve the communication with your dog, develop a trusting relationship and give him more choice opportunities and control on his life ?

If you see yourself in one of this situations, this class is made for you !

Cooperative husbandry training aims to teach animal to assist in their own care.

It’s an ethical and pratical choice. It is used in most of zoological parcs to care for wild animals avoiding restrain, anesthesia and reducing stress. Husbandry training is part of daily enrichment programs. Through this training we give the animal the skills and the opportunities to give his consent. Giving them choice and control over their environnement improves their general welfare.

If we can draw blood from a girafe or an orca without using force…why not do the same with our pets ?

Empowering our dogs in their own care not only make it easier, but also enrich our life together.

Some of the topics covered in this course :

• Understanding and using science basics in husbandry training.
• Teaching consent positions.
• Empowerment : Understanding importance of choice and control.
• Behavior, consequences and functions : how to use them to converse with animals.
• Teaching your dog the consent concept.
• How to train your dog through various daily procedures such as : handling, grooming, bathing, nails care, ears and eyes care, teeth brushing, muzzle training…
• What to do when our dog is not ready and you have to do it. Consequences.

A second level course will be focusing on training the dog to third party care such as the vet, the groomer, the osteopath.

And now you can have both courses with 10% discount!

We have created a package especially for you that will lead you from the beginning to a cooperative training at the vet.

Add the Empowered dogs course: Cooperative husbandry at the vet *PART2* and Empowered dogs: Cooperative husbandry training course *PART1* to the cart and enter the code HUSBANDRY

Start cooperative training today! Your dog will thank you for it.

Dogs’ olfactory abilities amaze us and what they manage to do with their noses is truly astounding.
Nosework is a sport that uses most natural, amazing dog’s abilities and develops them into perfection.

Nosework is one of the greatest dog sports, making its way to the top most popular canine activities. Inspired by working detection dogs searching for narcotics, explosives, nosework makes it available for everyone. Dogs are searching for essential oils hidden in vehicles, interiors, water, exteriors, and containers and they love it!

“No limitations”
This sport is for everyone! It is a perfect activity for old, retired, or disabled dogs who want to stay in shape but can’t be physically challenged. Aggressive dogs are welcome too!
Pure breed, crossbreed, old, young, slow, fast – it doesn’t matter what type your dog is!

During the course we focus on:

• what is nosework; rules reading
• classically conditioning odors
• building solid alert behavior using clicker training
• introducing discrimination between hot and cold objects
• introducing various odor holders
• introducing cardboard boxes
• generalization

Course syllabus:

Week 1:
Lesson 1 – Welcome and Introductions
Lesson 2 – What is nosework?
Lesson 3 – Nosework International and methods we use
Lesson 4 – Samples preparation and handling odor
Lesson 5 – Cocktail or not to cocktail?
Lesson 6 – Classical conditioning of odor
Lesson 7 – Hand touch

Week 2:
Lesson 8 – Tic-tac!
Lesson 9 – Precision
Lesson 10 – Duration

Week 3:
Lesson 11 – Cue for alert behavior
Lesson 12 – Handler’s movement

Week 4:
Lesson 13 – Competing stimulus
Lesson 14 – Various holders

Week 5:
Lesson 15 – Location of the holder – variations
Lesson 16 – Discrimination

Week 6:
Lesson 17 – New locations
Lesson 18 – New locations
Lesson 19 – Cue for the search

To take this course as a Premium Member you need to finish Trainer’s Toolbox first (as Premium or Auditor)

There are 3 more nosework course stages.

Control Is An Illusion Pt. 2 – Applying Skills & Deepening Understanding

Now that you’ve learned to re-frame the concept of impulse control in terms of stimulus control, and have practiced some core skills with your dogs, it’s time to fade-in more complex environmental stimuli and challenges.

The goal of this class will be to provide graduates of Pt. 1 with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of stimulus control and errorless teaching. Curriculum will be centered around the development of independent projects, but participants may also opt. to use their coaching time to complete or expand upon exercises from Pt. 1 as well, such as:

• Three Act Training Structure with Brave Learning Self-Review
• Bread-crumb Trail Teaching Progressions
• Clarifying Contexts: When to Offer Behavior and When to Wait for Cues
• Zen Bowl Games
• Advanced Shopping
• Joyous “Wait There” Applied to Real Life
• Fade in Protocol

This class will have a lot less reading and step by step guidelines, and a lot more doing it for yourselves! Come prepared to set some actionable goals, to design your own training plans, and to dive headfirst into the cycle of performance—feedback—revision.

Let the brave learning begin!

NOTE: The prerequisite for Pt. 2 is Control Is An Illusion Pt. 1. Auditors of Pt. 1 are welcome to join if you were able to keep up with the material, and feel like you and you dogs are ready for increased challenges. You can also use Pt. 2 to continue to work on Pt. 1 exercises in a more targeted way. Mastery is not required!

Obedience; distance control exercise, position changes with front anchored.

Position changes are one of my favorite exercises from the obedience ring. Starting in class 1 all the way to Elite class (class 3) there is always something we can focus on when doing position changes. This exercise is a perfect combination of precision and speed which equals fluency! Distance control is also a perfect exercise for behavior/precision nerd like myself! There is a lot of focus on those micro-movements, tiny weight shifts that change the whole process of learning.

The course will cover:

✔️ front anchored positions

– sit from stand

– sit from down

– stand from down

– stand from sit

– down from sit

– down from stand

✔️ building precision in each movement

✔️ adding distance

✔️ adding cues

✔️ adding duration

✔️ trial variations

Rear anchored positions will be covered in different courses.

Prerequisites:

– clicker training foundations.

To take this course as a Premium Member you need to finish Trainer’s Toolbox first (as Premium or Auditor)

Building upon skills we covered in stage one, we will continue our preparation for exams. ORTs and first trials. Our primary focus will always be precise and clear training loop and clarity in search criteria.

We will start where we left with stage 1 and focus on:

• start line routine
• introducing search patterns
• duration of search behavior
• handling
• building clarity in cues during search pattern
• generalization of locations
• task analysis of searches
• basics of scent theory
• increasing complexity of puzzles
• planning your own training

Course syllabus:

Week 1
Lesson 1 – Welcome and Introductions
Lesson 2 – Baseline
Lesson 3 – Chains in nosework
Lesson 4 – ABCs of the search
Lesson 5 – Start line routine
Lesson 6 – Our variables
Lesson 7 – Aging
Lesson 8 – Introducing search

Week 2
Lesson 9 – Introduction to scent theory
Lesson 10 – Inaccessible v. accessible
Lesson 11 – Introducing exteriors – boxes on the road 
Lesson 12 – Introducing exteriors – single hides
Lesson 13 – Duration of the search

Week 3
Lesson 14 – Handler’s job
Lesson 15 – Vehicles – introduction
Lesson 16 – Adding complexity to the search
Lesson 17 – Change of behavior
Lesson 18 – No visual cues

Week 4
Lesson 19 – Vehicles – cold vehicle
Lesson 20 – Exterior Progression
Lesson 21 – Vehicles – handling
Lesson 22 – Cues in nosework

Week 5
Lesson 23 – Duration of the search part 2
Lesson 24 – Crazy handler
Lesson 25 – Adding complexity to the search part 2

Week 6
Lesson 26 – Reducing the strength of the odor
Lesson 27 – Panning
Lesson 28 – What if?