Fenzi Food For Thought

Are you against medication for your dog? Take a listen to this Instagram live recording where we talk about just that! Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Here we have a short discussion of personal play, food play, and toy play, specifically in relation to changing the dogs emotional state. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Dice gave a perfect example of controlling his behavior without impacting the underlying emotion. This goes along with the fact that we can control external behavior but we need the learner's cooperation to change emotions. Take a listen; this one is short. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

It is critically important to know the difference between an emotion and a behavior. Changing a behavior to look the way you want does not mean the dog's emotion has changed. It means you changed the behavior! Are you sure that's what you want? Are you sure you understand what you've done? Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Handling errors of impulse, quality and understanding! There are many reasons why dog make errors. In this live, I covered the three that showed up in my training session that morning: errors of impulse, errors quality of work, and errors of understanding. They are different, and require different approaches. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Guest Sharon Carroll and Denise chat about sensitive dogs I have spent a lot of time talking about dogs who express arousal through high levels of energy, movement, and sometimes even aggression. Today I talked with Sharon and we looked at another kind of display; dogs that are also experiencing great arousal, but who internalize that experience through freezing, low energy, or simply poor performance. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

The reality is, in most dog sports 70% of your time is spent waiting for the judges direction, moving to the start of an exercise, etc. Relatively little time is spent with the dog doing work. Have you trained the dog for this reality of a lot of waiting and relatively little doing? This live talks about my thoughts with my own dog, and how I plan to start working on this for our team. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Are these developmental possibilities in a dog? Heck, are they even about the other, or are they about the one doing the describing? Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Can you separate what your dog sees, hears, smells and feels? Splitting these factors apart can help your reactivity training go faster. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

It's OK to be frustrated with your dogs behavior. And sometimes it's OK to change the dog's behavior so that you can be more comfortable. But that doesn't mean you've changed how the dog feels. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

In this live, we talked about how the placement of reinforcement impacts both precision and attitude. We considered this both in the realm of pet training and competition dogs. We talked about how to do a Cue transfer, considered dogs that are good candidates for luring versus shaping, and touched on the impact of patterns vs unpredictable choices in our work. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

What things do you teach your dog? Why do you teach these things? How about your clients? Do you change your expectations for different dogs in different circumstances? Why or why not? We explored these issues in this live. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

I think preparing for Dog sports competitions is one of the best ways to push your dog training skills. We talked about that here! How to avoid perfection paralysis. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

It's OK to give a motivator to a dog who has made an error. This episode is all about that process. Follow my training! The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

We talked about setting, raising, and lowering criteria. Using the concept of foundation skills when setting criteria, and problem-solving, with an eye towards how to shift criteria.

In this live we discussed barking in a variety of contexts, and some options you may have to resolve it.

Can you find ways to use punishment where the dog always wins?

Wait! You won't solve your behavior challenge in two months! My dog brings some tremendous benefits to the table but we are far from out of the woods! Remember, my process is not your process. Take your time, especially if you have a challenging dog, and celebrate what goes right. We also talked about managing your own anxiety with overaroused and reactive dogs.

This live explored the difference between flooding and habituation, and discusses why I choose to put out information on dog aggression, reactivity and over arousal, even though I know some of that information will be used poorly or misunderstood.

In the past, I have done several IG lives where I talked about components of over aroused or reactive behavior in more detail. On this one, I tried to summarize how I use those qualities when working with my own dog. In short, I tend to think about arousal rather than worrying about controlling the environment. Because I cannot control the environment and the triggers; there are too many of them. But I can control his arousal via techniques that work for both of us.

We covered more than that, but in effect, we had a conversation about what happens if an undesirable behavior has a reinforcing quality, even if it's not obvious to us with that reinforcing quality might be. The short answer is that your choice of reinforcement might increase the behavior you want, but it won't necessarily decrease the behavior you don't want. Or at least not to the point of extinction.

This is primarily aimed at dog sports competitors, but applies to pet dogs too. When reducing reinforcement, focus on your goal. What are you trying to accomplish? Recognize the trade offs of your choices when you select your route to ring readiness.

As with most things, it's not black-and-white. Some dogs benefit from more splitting, patterns, higher rate of reinforcement, and easier training sessions with less puzzling than other dogs. Those dogs might benefit from more lumping, more behavior chains, and more unpredictable/challenging training sessions with plenty of puzzling. In all cases, you need to watch your learner to determine how your interventions are being received. As a general rule, force free trainers err on the side of patterns and high rates of reinforcement for too long, making behavior chain goals hard to reach, and balanced trainers err on the side of the unpredictable and challenging training with too much frustration and lack of clarity in the work. You could pick your poison, or better still, watch your learner carefully and pick that just right path!

Dogs react very differently to a singular event or a mass distraction. This is another one of those personal qualities that you'll want to know about your dog when you work on matters of overarousal or reactivity, or you might find yourself doing exactly the reverse of what is most helpful to your situation.

In this live, I describe how I am going to train my dog this weekend away from home. What is my route? What is my plan to ensure that we have as much success as possible? It's important to have a plan when you are training, especially when you are away from home or have limited opportunities for away training. This one applies to both behavior work and Dog Sports competitors.

We've all been there. Watch this live to get some ideas for how to handle it when you're ready to throw in the towel over a single bad day.

Once again we covered a lot of territory! This live will introduce you to the quadrants (operant conditioning), and also classical conditioning. We discuss when reinforcement makes the most sense and when you might consider punishment if that is in your mental paradigm. We talk about extinction, habituation, and other random topics that dog trainers might find of interest!

Does your dog become more or less reactive to triggers when you increase your dog's exercise? While counterintuitive, it appears that some dogs might do quite a bit better if they receive less exercise! Link to the research study mentioned in this Instagram live.

Are you teaching what you think you're teaching? This live covered correlation is not causation and the risks of superstitious learning in humans! We talked about evaluating your training choices with care and reflection; modulating emotions in dogs; a few thoughts on how to change human behavior in life; a few thoughts on how to be happy in life; and a bit of problem-solving. Enjoy!

I hear this word used a lot in dogtraining. Usually it's the trainer saying that the dog trusts them. How do you know that? Trust is given, not taken from another. Consider how you do, or do not, have trust within your training relationship. This is from an Instagram Live I did last year. Enjoy the replay!

Yes, bitesports can be done positively. But if you put a traditional foundation first it will be a whole lot harder, if you can do it at all. **Since my first podcast wasn't clear and/or was widely misunderstood on the topic of instinct sports trained as force free as possible, this re-recording is designed as a summary and clarification.

Denise & I hung out with our very first guest, Erin Lynes, FDSA instructor and breeder of the most versatile labs around--in our humble opinion, that is... We talk about what temperament adds to versatility and those wrecking ball puppies we just can't resist! Plus, we get an insider look into the world of dock diving and learn about some skills you can train even before hitting the water. Enjoy!

It's helpful to try and meet your client where they are at. Plus we talked about lots of other stuff!

Denise & Ingrid got together to discuss harmony in dog training, between the client and pet professionals, dogs and culture and we got a Della the hamster update. Unfortunately, she's not as keen on doing things for sunflower seeds as we originally hoped, but she's pretty cute :)

We've all been there. Listen to this episode to get some ideas for how to handle it when you're ready to throw in the towel over a single bad day with your dog.

The tradition in bitesports and the hunting world is to build a dog's drive and add control later. That brings unnecessary anxiety and lack of clarity to training and makes the need for aversives highly likely. This is from an IG live about how one might balance drives and control from the very beginning to prevent problems throughout the dogs career.

Denise & Ingrid get together to chat with this conversation about who we are, how uniquely cute & talented our puppies are among other things that made us laugh and captured our dysfunctional brains this week. Enjoy!

What can a balanced trainer learn from a force free trainer? What can a force free trainer learn from a balanced trainer? Where are we strong? What can we add to our training plans that make us better trainers? This is a recording of an Instagram live I did last year. Look out for new episodes soon where I chat with some guests!

I've got another IG live for you I did last year on handling errors of impulse! Enjoy! Music provided royalty free by Bensound.com

In this first episode of Fenzi Food for Thought, I'm sharing with you a popular instagram live I did on the topic of movement vs. stillness and why this matters for training the individual dog in front of you.