Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - NW205: Creating Clarity with Contrasts

Course Details

Nosework was originally developed as an enrichment activity and quickly grew into one of the fastest growing dog sports. While therapeutic in nature, it also requires skillful training and handling.

Training with clarity is a goal for any sports training and it’s no different for Nosework!

Let’s consider how we can use contrasts to provide clarity. Will odor always be in a container? Will odor always be accessible? What about that distractor? Will there always be odor? Nosework is not only about finding target odor, but clearing cold areas, working through pooling odor, dismissing novel odors and more. By structuring our training to include contrasts, dogs learn to understand more clearly the essential elements of the task.

Nosework struggles are often a lack of understanding. Contrasts highlight those struggles and provide a path of understanding for the dog and handler. We can then tweak the training to bring clarity to the game.

Teaching Approach

This class offers written lectures, no verbal lectures, and videos of varying lengths. It is rare that relevant speaking takes place within a video; they are designed to be watched and follow the ideas presented in the lecture. Lecture videos may run from 30s to 3 minutes long, with the average between 1-2 minutes. The lectures are designed to help a student understand the purpose of the exercise and how to set it up appropriartely. Care is taken to keep lectures short.

A 1 minute unlimited homework video option is available, along with the standard 6 minutes option per week. This class will work best for students who learn by reading text lectures, watching videos and who like having structured lesson plans.

This class will have a Teacher's Assistant (TA) available in the Facebook study group to help the Bronze and Silver students! Directions for joining will be in the classroom after you register.

Instructor: Julie Symons

Julie Symons (she/her) has been involved in dog sports for over 30 years. Starting with her mix, Dreyfus, in flyball, she went on to train and compete in conformation, agility, obedience, herding and tracking with her first Belgian tervuren, Rival. Rival was the first CH OTCH MACH Belgian...(Click here for full bio and to view Julie's upcoming courses)

Syllabus

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Week 1: It's all about Source!

Blank vs. Target odor
Novel odor vs. Target odor
Blank vs. Novel odor vs. Target odor

Week 2: Search areas

Small areas vs. Large areas
Unproductive vs. Productive areas
Objectless areas vs. Areas with stuff/clutter

Week 3: Hide Placement

Low vs. High
Perimeter vs. Center
Threshold vs. Hides in back

Week 4: Odor presentation

Accessible vs. Inaccessible
Pooling Odor vs. Source
Low amount of odor vs. High Amount of odor

Week 5: Wind and Weather

Downwind vs. Upwind vs. Point to Point
Other weather conditions (no wind, hot, cold, rainy/damp)

Week 6:

Single vs. Pairs vs. Triangles
Context vs. Odor

* Due to this being a new course, the syllabus is subject to change.

Prerequisites & Supplies

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Suitable for teams preparing to trial or already trialing. Skills span all levels of training.

Basic NW odor supplies and access to different training locations.

Sample Lecture

Week 1: Blank vs. Novel Odor (Distractor) vs. Target Odor

This is one of my favorite exercises because it embodies many key skills for Nosework. Nosework requires dogs to recognize blank areas and not find something that is not there. Nosework requires dogs to dismiss novel odor in both unproductive and productive areas. Nosework also requires dogs to quickly locate target odor in the presence of competing motivators (distractors).

Using secure containers that won’t get tossed around or encourage being stepped on, set up containers so they are spread out in a small group. You can sit on the ground, in a chair or stand up. Your repetitions should follow this order:

A blank group of containers
A group of containers with a food distractor, no target odor
A group of containers with target odor, no distractor
Optional, repeat step 3 with target odor and a distractor

Additionally you can do repetitions using toys.

A group of containers with toy distractor, no odor
A group of containers with target odor and with toy distractors out

Note: If you think your dog will interact/pick up the toy, start with the toy in a vented container and work up to them being able to dismiss it. I would have odor out with the toy to start as the distractor alone may be too hard. If they do pick it up, ask them to give or drop and remove from the search. Go back a step so that they can not retrieve it.

The KEY on the repetitions without target odor is to wait for your dog to dismiss the pile of items and call finish when they are not interacting/sniffing any of the containers.

Testimonials & Reviews

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A sampling of what prior students have said about this class ...

Awesome class! Julie is so inventive with how she instructs. I always learn so much from her. I have taken so many gold classes with her in the past 3 years. I think I have only missed 1 session!!! Good to have a new class to learn new skills.

Another excellent course from Julie. Creating clarity with contrasts is as much about honing the handler's observation skills as it is about creating "clarity" in the dog's searching skills. The effective use of contrasts really allows the handler to gain clarity on the different ways the dog reacts to odor in different setups. By putting the contrasts together, this course has provided a real boost to my clarity of understanding my dog's behavior in and out of odor. As always, Julie's feedback is supportive, detailed, and her suggestions for progressions/regressions on each of the exercises makes it feel like the course is bespoke for each individual dog. Thank you Julie for another excellent learning experience! C & RP

The overall mantra for NW is to trust your dog. This course provides a framework for helping the handler recognize what the dog is telling the owner in a variety of scenarios. Julie’s course helps you observe your dog’s movements and behavior between contrasting searches, such as High/Low hides, single/multiple hides, and different environmental conditions.

Without Clarity there is no real trust in your dog. Using the contrasting setups that Julie provides helps bring Clarity to what your dog is trying to tell you. The lectures and associated videos make it easy for someone at Bronze to do all the exercises. But at Gold, Julie’s experienced eyes identify behaviors that could be missed.

I am way more prepared for trialing from the instruction here. Julie has so much knowledge with nosework and this class was excellent!

I've taken lots of courses with Julie and always appreciate her thoughtful and helpful feedback. This class seems to be helpful to students working at many levels. I highly recommend it to students wanting to improve both handler and dog skills.

As usual, Julie gets the pace and materials spot on. The way the class is set up, there are easy progressions or regressions depending on the experience of the dog and handler.

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration opens at 12:00noon Pacific Time.

NW205 Subscriptions

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Tuition	$ 260.00	$ 130.00	$ 65.00
Enrollment Limits	12	25	Unlimited
Access all course lectures and materials	✔	✔	✔
Access to discussion and homework forums	✔	✔	✔
Read all posted questions and answers	✔	✔	✔
Watch all posted videos	✔	✔	✔
Post general questions to Discussion forum	✔	✔	✖
Submit written assignments	✔	✖	✖
Post dog specific questions	✔	With video only	✖
Post videos	✔	Up to 2	✖
Receive instructor feedback on	Questions All videos	Questions All videos	✖

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