Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - CC205: Targeting Fitness

Course Details

Want to start fitness using targeting? Maybe fine tune your dog’s fitness skills to reduce your dogs luring during exercises. This class is for you!

This class will teach a variety of targeting skills including front foot targeting, rear foot targeting, all feet targeting, individual foot targeting, and face targeting as well as some key weight shift movement skills such as moving body weight forwards, backwards, and sideways. By combining these targeting and movement skills we can create a range of fitness exercises, and teach for understanding quickly. By using targeting we can reduce luring, which can create excessive movement and frustration. We will also look at duration and stillness as concepts for fitness.

This class will suit humans and canines new to fitness, through to more experienced teams. It is able to be adapted to be appropriate for young dogs through to geriatrics. Please note that your dog needs to be sound, and if they have had any lameness or significant orthopedic or health issue may need clearance for fitness training from their main veterinary care provider. Please contact Kelly if you are unsure if this class is appropriate for your dog.

This is a new class, there is no TA for class currently.

Instructor: Kelly Daniel

Kelly Daniel (She/her) is a learning and dog training addict. She has been training and competing with her dogs (of various shapes and forms) for around 15 years ...

Syllabus

View Full Syllabus

Week 1

Fitness Guidelines
Form and it's importance
Reinforcement skills and mechanics
Front paw targeting with both feet
Rear paw targeting with both feet
Differentiating between front and back feet targeting
Stillness as a concept

Week 2

Individual front paw targeting
Individual back paw targeting
Face targeting (chin rest, nose target)
Duration with reverse luring
Base movement skill: sideways movement
Base movement skill: backwards movement

Week 3

Clear cuing for stillness and movement
Starting on duration for individual paw lifting
Using a target stick
Using movement skills and targeting to change positions
Using reinforcement placement to influence head position
Positions

Week 4

Fine tuning foot placement with silicone target mats
Sustained foot lifts
Base movement skill: sending around an item (wrapping)
Movement between targets for specific fitness exercises
Individual foot placement on four different items

Week 5

Front end strength exercises
Rear end strength exercises
Core strength exercises
Flexibility and mobility exercises

Week 6

Advancing movement based exercise
Advancing rear foot targeting exercises
Advancing front foot targeting exercises
Advancing core exercises
Workouts
Thanks!

Prerequisites and Equipment

There are no prerequisites other than your dog having clearance (if required) for fitness training.

Equipment

Long stable platform
Smaller stable platforms
Flat silicone target mats (preferably long and rectangular for two feet)
Circular flat silicone target mats
Items that dogs can target with with one foot like foot pods (4)
Cavaletti poles

Equipment substitutions and DIY options can be suggested!

Sample Lecture

3.1 Clearly cuing to move between movement and stillness

Fitness is a great activity because it’s very high in reinforcement rate, we never have to reduce or remove reinforcement, and we are able to use equipment setup and choice to teach exercises in correct form quickly.

One of the biggest causes of frustration in fitness is a lack of clarity in if movement is, or is not required. An example is for some dogs, if we are using luring to try to adjust form or positioning they can have conflict over when they should take the treats in the hand and move, or stay still. This can either cause frustration or stress, and/or excessive foot movement.

Here you can see the difference in Grid’s movement (and unwanted movement in particular) when luring, vs using targets and clear movement cues.

The other thing that makes a huge difference in clarity in fitness, and getting stillness and duration in positions is reverse luring. This concept comes from Laura Waudly, and I learnt from Sara Brueske in FDSA classes.

https://laurawaudby.blogspot.com/2013/02/using-reverse-luring.html

For me in fitness I use this with a visual cue (open palm vs closed palm), and then transfer the concept to the bowl to get a focus forward with stillness.

Trip and Amethyst learning:

Deo getting stillness in positions with reverse luring:

Glitch using reverse luring:

Sage starting to use focus on the bowl:

I also use clear cues for when movement is required. I use ‘back’ as a general shift weight backwards cue, specific cues for movement to a target, and target sticks to help with movements with no floor based targets. We can also use verbal cuing of positions to cue movement, such as sit, down, stand. We just need to be very aware that there are different movements into a sit, down, and stand as you can see in the video below. This means sometimes we need different cues for (for example) a tuck sit vs a sit back sit.

Your task

- Do you have a clear cue for stillness?

- Do you already have clear movement cues?

- What positional cues do you already have, and what are the specific criteria of these cues? For example when you cue a sit is this a tuck sit, or a sit back sit?

List your relevant skills, and make a list of things you need to work on or add.

Registration

Next session starts: December 1, 2024
Registration starts: November 22, 2024
Registration ends: December 15, 2024

Registration opens at 10:30am Pacific Time.

CC205 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	✖

Find more details, refund policies and answers to common questions in the Help center.

CC205: Targeting Fitness

Course Details

Gold

Silver

Bronze