Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - FF280: Empowerment

Course Details

A Course for Expanding your dog's Personal Power! You can nurture your dog's natural curiosity and optimism toward the big wide world. There will also be a Teaching Assistant in the study group for this class to keep you on track as you progress. It's a busy and productive and supportive place! Work and play alongside other dedicated and creative minds!

Can your dog use some help with the physical and mental challenges of your favorite sport? Would you like for your dog to enjoy more activities with you? Would you like for your dog to meet new environments and novel stimuli with tail wagging and head held high?

This class will help your dog choose to expand their world. In their own way and in their own time, dogs everywhere are surprising their owners with how they put these principles together and carry new confidence and optimism over into other areas of their lives.

There are many dogs who have learned to tolerate the challenges of their sport, but have not learned to love them. There is a world of difference between Tolerance and Empowerment!

Does your dog enjoy meeting new challenges? Does he need a moment to size up the effort, or does he charge in? Does he show curiosity and then need help with his coordination or his confidence? Does he investigate a physical skill with an open mind? Does he enjoy himself when he falls off the ball or the toy falls down with a crash? Does he do well with noise and balance and height and motion and pressure and space?

We will use the concept of “Shaping for Demand” to help your dog start using each of our games to make you notice and make you pay. A new mindset is possible!

The right kind of exposure to new elements of difficulty can make all the difference in your dog's future success. And your dog's success with one activity makes it easier for him to succeed in other activities. Your dog will make physical and mental leaps of progress in this class!

Any age or size or breed of dog can benefit from the games we will play in Empowerment. Every game will be adapted for a dog who comes into the class with more confidence or less confidence. We can enjoy any baseline level of ability. We are only here to make personal progress.

We will build brain power and personal power. We will enhance your dog's self reliance and sense of fun. We will help him enjoy going over, under, around, and through all sorts of contraptions. We will be making noise and problem solving in our safe spaces and then out in the real world.

You will not need much space and you will not need fancy equipment. This is a terrific winter project. We will be dealing in concepts, not just in obstacles. So you will be able to create homemade substitutes for any of the class obstacles, and the more creative the better! Creativity challenges will be part of the course discussions!

I use everything from bakeware to plastic bags and scrap materials of all kinds in my games for building confidence and coordination. I can think of a way to get into your dog's head with a start point, and from there we will develop a plan and begin seeing improvements. We are on a mission to create dogs who think that the unexpected in life is FUN!

Teaching Approach

This is a concept class rather than a skills class. We'll all be playing the same games, and the games are not complex nor difficult. But you will need to make adjustments for your own dog in every game! Several alternative choices will be mentioned to give you guidance. You will be asked to decide how easy or difficult you should make your own dog's version of each game we play. It is my goal that you learn a lot about your dog's personality and your own creativity.

This class will have 2 Teacher's Assistants (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 Daniels

Julie Daniels (she/her) won her first award for writing in the fourth grade, and she was training dogs long before that. Today Julie Daniels is one of the foremost names in dog agility in the United States. She was one of the early champions of the sport and helped many clubs throughout the country...(Click here for full bio and to view Julie's upcoming courses)

Syllabus

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WEEK 1

Tolerance vs Empowerment
The Power of Touch to Build Trust
Games for Substrates
Push Games
Inclines: Up and Down
Context Cues: Happy Place is Real

WEEK 2

The Broccoli Principle: Push-Back Games
Shaping for Demand
More Substrates
Fun with Tubes
Inclines: Turning Around
Using Motion and Energy

WEEK 3

The Curiosity Principle: Visual Games
Do You Like Surprises?
Games for Between, Over and Under
Games for Balance
Games for Combining Substrates and Noise
Causing Noise

WEEK 4

The Sardine Principle: Space Games
Games for Take Your Place
Games for Hold Your Place
Games for Combining Balance and Noise
Using Rudeness, and Using Tact
Relief of Pressure – Understanding the Quadrant of Negative Reinforcement

WEEK 5

The Find-It Principle: Location Games for Things and Sounds
Games for Dropping and Spilling
Games for Combining Stimuli
Finding and Nurturing the Dog's Competitive Spirit
Using Noise: Apps and Friends and Strangers
Using and Appreciating the Post-Reinforcement Pause

WEEK 6

The Pressure Principle: Weight of the World
Games for Falling and Sliding
Games for Combining Your Easy with Your Difficult
Reward the Effort, Reward the Question
The Contrast Effect Revisited
Keeping Your Dog Open: Body, Mind, and Heart

Prerequisites & Supplies

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There are no prerequisites for Empowerment! Dogs of all ages, sizes, and breeds are invited. Any baseline level of confidence and stability is welcome in this class. This is a great class for dogs who will be service dogs or search and rescue dogs or police dogs, competition sport dogs, and, as always first and foremost, family pets who will be sharing our complicated modern lives.

This course will benefit from my in-person sessions, which will include babies and adult dogs, dogs with confidence issues, dogs with general anxiety issues, reactive dogs, and dogs with very specific problems concerning noise, balance, space, environment, or performance. I tried to cover all the bases!

If you have no issues, why not keep it that way! During the course you will probably find something that can use extra attention in order to keep your dog confident and stable. We will strive to make you and your dog ready for any sort of challenge which will present in your sport or your life as you go forward.

There will not be a need for any fancy equipment, but you will be asked to come up with things that move and look strange and go bump in the night! All sorts of creative use of items will be encouraged, and a contest will be run to reward the utmost in creativity of materials.

You will benefit from a noise app on your phone, but you can create plenty of noises without that aid. You will benefit from a plank of about six feet or longer. You will be asked to raid your kitchen for metal and plastic items. I am a big fan of metal pans and bowls, as well as metal dog food bowls. If you do not have a metal food bowl you should buy or borrow one and start feeding your dog from it.

Please contact the instructor for more information.

Sample Lecture

DEFINING LEVELS of EMPOWERMENT, by Julie Daniels

When we offer any sort of performance challenge to the dog, we can categorize the dog's responses into Levels of Empowerment. Here is a brief and general description of what might present at each of these three levels in this class.

Level 1) The dog comes forward and investigates the object. He might nose touch the item. He might put a paw on the object, but his weight is shifted back, away from the object, rather than forward over the object. He has tolerance for the obstacle, but would not enjoy any push-back games. Does not like broccoli here.

Level 2) The dog shows attraction for the obstacle. He wants to interact with the obstacle and earn reinforcement by using the obstacle. He might enjoy a bit of push-back. He might like just a little taste of broccoli.

Level 3) The dog feels in command of the obstacle. He shows enjoyment and pride as he is using the obstacle to earn reinforcement. His center of gravity is forward and he is ready for push-back broccoli games. He pushes back happily to get more interaction with the obstacle. He loves broccoli!

This is a subjective assessment which you can make with each challenge you present to your empowerment dog. It is useful in a case-by-case objective look at what your dog is showing you. And your dog may well be at Level 3 on one game and Level 1 on another as we progress through the class. This would be quite typical! This assessment can be applied to a game of surprise, a game of substrate, or push, or any obstacle contraption you have designed. It can also apply to games of sound as well as games of action.

The levels of empowerment are there to help you see more in your dog's behaviors, and also for you to be able to name what you see. These would be very good points of discussion, as they will present quite differently in various kinds of challenges.

GETTING TO LEVEL 1

Here is a quick review of a dog in my in-person Empowerment class being invited to work with multiple metal substrates. This is Trevor, who is doing fine playing other games in our class. But for some reason he is having trouble with this one. In this first short video, Trevor shows no desire to investigate his pile of three items. His classmates are happily at work. You can hear all the clanging going on around him, and Trevor is not visibly upset about their noise.

How can we help Trevor with the metal substrates? We are not afraid of luring, so do we try to lure some level of interaction to help Trevor get started?

Trick question. NO! Don't fall for that! You will lose, can you see that?! This is not a situation where you should lure the dog, because he is not even close to being ready. Take a look. What would you do?

Trevor Metal Substrate Challenges

HOW TO WIN: GET OUT, AND CHOOSE ONE THING

Well, here is what we did. This will work. This is what I mean when I say to “ditch it and get out.” We got rid of two-thirds of the challenge. We went down to the one cookie sheet alone, and then we let Trevor think and move about, and we bought anything he thought of to do with the single substrate. He was able to put a different mindset to work.

If you are able to hear the video as well as watch it, you will hear me remind Trevor's dad not to feed Trevor from hand. This is an important distinction. We do not want to create a passive game. We need to drop the cookies onto the metal cookie sheet, because we want that cookie sheet to pay! You will also hear me remind Trevor's dad to move occasionally, because motion is our friend. Motion allows Trevor to feel the relief of leaving the metal. Then Trevor gets to decide whether to return and cause the cookie sheet to pay him again. If we can just get to Level 1 Empowerment with the cookie sheet then Trevor will soon take over. Once he feels his personal power he will begin to own the game and use it to make the cookie sheet pay again and again. He will not waste time asking his dad for cookies. He will know how to activate the cookie sheet to pay him.

Trevor Cookie Sheet Level 1 Empowerment

What is different? We can't say that Trevor is fully empowered – far from it – but he is on his way. We went all the way back to one metal substrate, and it seems clear that we can build from this. Trevor is willing to interact with the metal and he learned how to make it pay. That means he will look at that cookie sheet differently next time. Trevor was able to make the leap to level 1 empowerment on his cookie sheet. That's enough for today! Tomorrow we'll review and then move on to the next step.

Does your dog enjoy all the different games and substrates so far? Most dogs, like Trevor, find that one or another of the challenges is more difficult than the others. How can you break the game apart and set up an operation which will allow your dog to get to level 1 empowerment? Let's talk about it! It's so much fun for both of you when your dog begins to feel his own power over a 'scary thing' in life! We'll meet him right where he is, and we'll design the right game to get your dog to Level 1 Empowerment in each of our games. That's our paw in the door. Broccoli is in your future!

Julie Daniels

Deerfield, NH

Testimonials & Reviews

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

Hi Julie, I followed this class as a bronze and am very appreciative that your games, lectures, and comments were well thought out, thorough and clear. Reading the communication between you and the golds were always enlightening. Your questions to the owners starting them on their way to becoming thinking trainers is huge. I appreciate learning how to be watchful and thoughtful of my dogs so we continue to learn well after the class is over. This sets us up for success throughout the life of the dog. This was my first experience watching you in action, I am mightily impressed and look forward to working with you in the future.

At bronze level I learned a lot of great things and much needed basic things that are so powerful! Things clicked! Thank you so much!! It was very exciting and heartwarming to go thru the games and see my dog who tolerates or walks off becoming empowered. We will keep these games up so we will be ready for Part two. I really enjoyed this class and your lectures and the forums.

Julie is so completely awesome! This is the first gold level class I've taken from her. and she is so upbeat and encouraging! I honestly do not think I would have been able to progress with my dog if I had not taken this class. I was completely stuck. Getting a gold spot was invaluable and I will practice the games with all my dogs for the rest of my life.

Julie, this is my 4th class with you. I just love the games in this class. They are really what we needed. Renny's behavior at trials use to really puzzle me. I always wondered what I was failing to do. This class has really enabled me to see the issues clearly and provided a correct path. I feel much more in tune with her. Everything came into focus for me. This is priceless. The lectures were easy to understand and provided just the right amount of information. The associated videos clearly showed how to play the games. I hope to see a follow-on course for Empowerment at some point in the future.

Empowerment: An absolutely fantastic course. Thank you!!! I felt we were experiencing training at the heart of the matter. This is basic to EVERYTHING as far as I’m concerned…sports, personal interaction with our dogs, behavior, daily living. It is certainly key for me and my dogs. This is what I was searching for when I found Fenzi Academy. Courses I would love to take if they were offered: Contacts…empowered learning of each contact obstacle. I have taken most of your Fenzi Academy courses, including Foundation See Saw (where I first saw empowered learning for a specific obstacle). I would like to learn how to train all the contacts (especially A frame and Dog Walk) with your methods and games. I would love to see more empowerment courses specifically directed toward agility performance, even toward specific obstacles was true for Weaves and Teeter. Speed Em Up…games to interest, arouse and speed up low-drive or low-confidence dogs.

Julie is amazing. Her level of commitment to every student (at every level of training and understanding) is incredible. The content was great. Julie included a lot of games and it was easy to pick and choose which ones were "right" for my dog at the time. Later, when I make more progress I can choose to progress with other games that she introduced as well.

Thanks, Julie! You're the best!!! You are so inspiring. My dogs and I are having so much fun together with your games. I dropped my notebook on my sensitive girl's head tonight by mistake and she gave me the "where's my treat" look instead of running away! And we haven't even played the week 6 pressure games yet. I'm looking forward to Creating the Monster!

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 11:00am Pacific Time.

FF280 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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FF280: Empowerment

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