Course Details
Optimal Arousal: Consent and the Working Dog is a six-week deep dive into understanding and working with arousal.
This course is about establishing and maintaining optimal arousal in the working dog. By “working dog”, I mean dogs who work in partnership with us using the instincts they were bred for in venues where maintaining optimal arousal levels is critical for success: herding, agility, scent work (SAR, tracking, nose work etc.), protection sports, and the like.
This class is critical for anyone who trains in dog sports, especially for those who work with intense, easily aroused, and/or easily shut down / sensitive dogs.
Why is achieving Optimal Arousal important? Ok, I’m going to get on my soap box for a moment:
We use way, way, WAY too much arousal in dog sports. And we need to stop it. Now. (*steps off soapbox*)
Having highly aroused dogs is counter productive to learning, it’s detrimental to performance, and it creates behaviour problems.
So, why is it so common in dog sports to use high levels of arousal in training? Because of the widespread but mistaken belief that dogs need high levels of arousal for speed. Which is simply not true.
Instead, what dogs need for Optimal Performance is Optimal Arousal, which comes from the tripartite approach of understanding, ability, and confidence. When they have those three aspects of training in place, speed is a natural by product.
When we use arousal to get speed, we end up with dogs who bark, spin, fly off course, slow down, sniff, bite, shut down, make errors, crash through jumps, leave their handlers, bite sheep, lose their track, false alert, visit the judge, lose enthusiasm, do spontaneous victory laps, become anxious, or just simply quit.
If any of this sounds a little too familiar, come join me in Optimal Arousal!
A few more details:
Our working (and sport!) dogs have strong impulses to do the work they were bred for, yet many struggle with optimal learning and performance due to excessive arousal. At the same time, we need that arousal to get the job done. Our task is to help our dogs achieve the mental sweet spot for learning and performance. The good news is, we can do this through training!
To move toward this optimal state, we will focus on balance in our training — alternating between intensity and calm — to help teach our dogs to learn how to regulate themselves. We will learn their “tells” and create a plan to respond in real time to keep them ‘in the zone’ and working effectively.
There are two major factors that come into play in achieving our goal: Consent and (self-)Control.
Consent is critical for ensuring an engaged, willing partner, and asking our dogs for their consent before proceeding will go a long way towards achieving the mental state we seek.
Consent, however, is only the first of two critical questions we must ask our dog. Let’s face it, most of our working bred dogs WANT to do the work. So, while it’s critical to ask the question “Do you want to do this?”, we need to go one step further and ask “CAN you do this?”.
This course will provide you with practical exercises and a clear roadmap for achieving Optimal Arousal in your sport of choice. Gold and Silver students will work with me, using this foundation, to create a tailored plan for their unique dog and working situation.

Hélène Lawler (she/her) got her first dog, a border collie named Jake, in 1989 and has been training dogs ever since. Over the years, she has trained in obedience, search and rescue, protection sports, rally, tricks, and freestyle, among others. She discovered agility in 2004, and herding in 2005, which have become her main focus and passion in dog sports. (Click here for full bio and to view Hélène's upcoming courses)