Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - NW320: Motivating Drills for Maintaining Skills

Course Details

Like with many sports, it's nice to have some drills to set up and run! Drills can help us maintain skills. They can also surface gaps! We may also find we aren't pushing ourselves for more challenges when the dog is ready!

Heck, having some ready made drills can simply get us out to train which is great stimulation, enrichment and even some decompression when we might be feeling overwhelmed and stressed with the world!

Specific drill details will be provided - the where, what, how! Each search will be reviewed for skill competency for next steps: is there is a gap that needs nurturing or are ready for more! Setups will be generally straight forward to minimize fuss, including some pre-planning to be ready to go on a moments notice!

Teaching Approach

This class offers written lectures, no verbal lectures, and videos of varying lengths. It is rare that relevant speaking takes place within a video; they are designed to be watched and follow the ideas presented in the lecture. Lecture videos may run from 30s to 3 minutes long, with the average between 1-2 minutes. The lectures are designed to help a student understand the purpose of the drill and how it might vary by dog. Care is taken to keep lectures short. Each week 4 drills are rolled out at the start of the week. This class will work best for students who learn by reading text lectures, watching videos and who like having structured lesson plans.

Instructor: Julie Symons

Julie Symons (she/her) has been involved in dog sports for over 25 years. Starting with her mix, Dreyfus, in flyball, she went on to train and compete in conformation, agility, obedience, herding and tracking with her first Belgian tervuren, Rival. Rival was the first CH OTCH MACH Belgian...(Click here for full bio and to view Julie's upcoming courses)

Sample Lecture

Week 1-1: Unique Search Location - Containers in the woods or along a trail

We'll kick off the class with a search that matches the thumbnail of this class!

This setup also overlaps with distractions - the environment. Critters, smells, possible people around!

Simply take up to 8 containers or a few more and head to a walking trail or woody/leafy/sandy area. Pick what makes sense for your climate/landscape/location.

Decide on how many to make hot.
Grab a few containers headed out to the recycle bin - cereal boxes, take out containers. Something you won't keep and hoard but will go right to recyle bin when back home!
Plan to say finish after your dog has cleared the containers .
You can give your dog 2 passes and then call finish.
Have a plan if you return to found hides when you go back down the line. Feed again, or say something like "good boy, find another". I'm moving away from saying "you found that one" as it's not very clear ... cuing them to find more is clearer!

Here's Ellen and CIder who were able to set this up at home.

For a more advanced setup - you can scatter the boxes in the woods, some partly hidden.

Testimonials & Reviews

Read All Testimonials

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

I've taken three Gold level Fenzi classes in Nosework and this was by far the best of the bunch! Julie brings a depth of experience and knowlege to her instruction. I really liked how she structured the class -- focusing on four different types of skills and offering different exercises each week in those categories She is able to suggest additional exercises specific to each dog. No cookie cutter advice here! I highly recommend this class.

I heard about the course on the FDSA Alumni FB group. It sounded like the course I needed to build up my dog's and my confidence. I loved and enjoyed all the different drills we ran. They helped build some extra tools for our tool box. My dog became more confident and showed some very advanced skills during the course. Julie's assessment of our video's was thoughtful and engaging. She offered suggestions to make our team better. Loved this class!

Great course. The lessons could be applied to any level of nosework. They were fun and engaging for me and my dog. Sometimes they pushed our limits which was fine.

Nice variety of activities and games to give us more ideas on skills and environments to work on. Loved how they were quick ideas when things is life get a bit hectic.

Julie is great! She offered me specific exercises to help with trouble spots. She was extremely responsive to questions and offered constructive advice.

I really liked the structure of the class. It really helped put each week's exercises into a larger framework, and helped me watch my dog progress.

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 will open at 12:00noon Pacific Time

NW320 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.

NW320: Motivating Drills for Maintaining Skills

NW320: Motivating Drills for Maintaining Skills

Course Details

Teaching Approach

Syllabus

Prerequisites & Supplies

Sample Lecture

Testimonials & Reviews

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

Registration

Registration will open at 12:00noon Pacific Time

NW320 Subscriptions

Gold

Silver

Bronze