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.

Are you already tired of traditional nosework trainings? Do you want to spice them up, but you don’t know how? This course will be just right for you. It aims to spice up your olfactory trainings, make a dog solve tasks and work with different skills through games and puzzles. Exercises are based on all categories. We focus on having fun, a large dose of motivation and building a strong relationship with the dog. Each week you will receive two games to play and two puzzles. They will be presented for people at the basic level and in the version for people at a higher level. From time to time you will receive the ‘Do it yourself!’ special task. In this way, we will work on issues that are problematic for you, but so that you can learn to plan your trainings in an unconventional way. I want to stimulate participants creativity so that in the future they can design a game or a puzzle for their dog on their own.

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 train 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.
Pocket it! This course focus will be working without treats in hand and helping as little as possible. We give the learner the highest rage of choice we can, and teach the learner to actively take part in the training.

Frisbee is highly complex and can be dangerous if done mindlessly. That’s why building correct foundations is a key! We cannot skip it!

Preparation For Frisbee is a series of four courses . Completing all four courses will mean that your dog is ready for high level Frisbee performance. He will have skills which are required for safety and will allow him to bring out his full potential.

Is it required for just playing? No. But my goal is not to help your dog just play. My goal is to prepare you for high level performance where everything you do is technical (which means as effective and as safe as possible).

I am glad to introduce you to the first part of this series. Here we focus on fundamental skills in toy play and development of behaviors which are crucial for playing Frisbee(like exchanging toy, following us, motivation for toys and many others). We put here huge emphasis on strong reinforcement history and generalization so that every skill your dog will learn can be also applied in future games.

Lastly a bit less formal…. Building foundations teaches you one of the most important skills in dog training. How to enjoy playing and making progress. Even little steps can give a lot of joy. In my opinion that’s the most important thing because all in all we should train to have fun together.

But what if I’m not interested in doing dog frisbee? 

It’s perfectly fine to take this course without intention for Frisbee development as I said we are working with toys and those skills and behaviors are necessary in any toy based activity. AND if you change your mind you can always take part in second part of the series. I will be waiting for you.

This course is very sentimental for me. My dog didn’t tug at all. He didn’t like to take things into his mouth but I really wanted to play Frisbee so we started learning how to tug. At that time I knew very little and our journey was full of frustration. That wasn’t a fun experience for any of us.

We were working hard (I’m pretty stubborn so I kept trying) and after a year we managed to bring tugging to the level where I can call that a reinforcement. Was it hard? Definitely… Would it be easier to do if I had known as much as I know now? It would!

So what is “Iron Jaws”? It’s a compendium of knowledge which I hope I have known when I started. I know that I am not the only one who struggled with this behavior. It’s harder than most people think and that’s why I wrote this course.

The goal is to teach you to tug and give you a clear view on what to do BUT “what” is not enough for me. With a little help of science I will show you why does it work. Tugging is not magic. It’s a behavior like a sit or lie down and shares the same principles of learning. It’s also one of the best ways for creating strong and happy relationship with your dog AND it’s so fun to do!

If your dog doesn’t “like” to tug this course is for you!

The arrival of a new baby is a huge lifestyle change for humans….and also for the dogs we live with. In the UK behavioural problems related to the addition of a new baby to a family is one of the top 3 reasons that dogs are surrendered for rehoming.

But some preparation and simple training before the baby’s birth can prevent problems arising and set everyone in the family – human and canine – up for success.

Over the course of 6 weeks we’ll discuss a range of issues including –

• Body language: how to become more dog observant and understand the signs that your dog is becoming stressed
• Lifestyle changes: what is likely to change for your dog and how can you make these transitions easier
• Baby Incompatible Behaviours: are there things that are acceptable now but won’t be acceptable with a baby in the home?
• (Baby) Proofing Behaviours: to create rock solid behaviours under new conditions
• Supervision: what it is and what it isn’t
• New Things: familiarising your dog with new sounds, scents, equipment etc
• Homecoming & First Meetings: what to do and what not to do

The course will include practical exercises and assignments each week.

This course is for you if you are an expectant parent (or grandparent) with a dog, or are living with dogs & young babies or are a professional trainer working with family dogs.

Preparation in advance – more success, less stress!