WW457: June 9- Your Daily Zen: A Week's Worth of Calm and Control Exercises (REPEAT)

In Your Daily Zen workshop Deb will guide you through a week’s worth of calm & control exercises to learn & practice with your dog. These 7 exercises will lay a very strong zen foundation. For each exercise Deb will also discuss how to add challenges as well as consider everyday uses. Building up your dog’s zen “muscle” will be helpful in all your training and day to day interactions. Dogs who learn to wait for more information are much easier to train and live with than dogs who charge forward to take what they want.

This workshop is meant to be a sampler and to expose you to a large number of zen exercises in a short period of time. While everyone should start by mastering the first exercise (the zen breath) from there you can either follow in the daily suggested order, or jump around to pick and choose those exercises that most appeal to you or meet your immediate needs. You should spend around 10 minutes a day on this work.

Exercises will include 1) the zen breath, 2) slow treats, 3) zen bowl, 4) floor zen, 5) zen hand, 6) release object from mouth, and 7) leave it. Each day’s exercise will include basic training instructions, a discussion of how & why the exercise can be useful, troubleshooting common issues, useful applications, and suggestions for adding challenges. At the end of the week you & your dog should have a good handle on the fundamentals of zen work.

Even if you feel like your dog knows the basic exercises, this workshop will give suggestions for ways to challenge his understanding and build an even stronger zen response.

Watch the Trailer:

Lecture Publish Date: Sunday June 9th

Video Submissions Due Date:  Sunday June 16th @ 12pm noon PT 

Feedback & Questions Video Publish Date: Wednesday June 19th

Instructor: Deborah Jones

Deborah Jones, Ph.D. (she/her) is a psychologist who specializes in learning theory and social behavior. She taught a variety of psychology courses at Kent State University for the past 20 years. Deb has been training dogs for performance events for the past 25 years and was an early...(Click here for full bio and to view Deb's upcoming courses)