Course Details
We often start with breed. Herding dogs herd. Retrievers retrieve. Protection dogs bite. Hounds sniff. And yes, genetics matter. Function shaped form. Dogs were developed to do specific jobs, and those jobs shaped what tends to feel good to them. Understanding what a breed was originally meant to do can give us a place to begin. It helps us ask better questions. It helps us try things that are more likely to click.
But it’s only a starting place.
In this session, we’ll look at major functional breed groupings and explore what they were historically built to do and what that might mean for finding reinforcement, play, and connection. We’ll talk about predatory motor patterns, scent-driven dogs, cooperative working types, and independent guardians. You’ll leave with practical ideas you can try immediately to see what lights your dog up.
And this is where I had to learn something the hard way.
Because sometimes the most damaging part of a relationship is the expectations we bring into it. I got a Dutch Shepherd for protection sports. He wants to sniff and chase butterflies. If I had stayed attached to what I thought he should love instead of paying attention to what he actually loved, our training would have felt like pressure instead of partnership.
This webinar isn’t about ignoring genetics. It’s about starting with what the books say, and then paying attention to whether your dog agrees. It’s about running small experiments, noticing enthusiasm, and letting your dog show you what feels good to them.
Genetics can help you know where to start. But the relationship deepens when you stay curious enough to adjust. That’s usually where the joy shows up.
Whether you have a purpose-bred sport dog, a rescue mix, or a dog who seems to have read a completely different breed manual, this session will help you find a clearer starting point and then build from what your dog actually enjoys. Because the goal isn’t to prove your dog fits a category. The goal is to understand what they enjoy and build from there.
About the Instructor:
Crystal Wing BA, MAE. (she/her) taught high school art for 23 years. She has been an athlete and high school coach for various sports. Since 2006, Crystal has been dedicated to training dogs, traveling nationwide to learn and compete in a range of protection sports. She was a certified trial helper through GSDCA for IGP and training decoy for Mondioring. Through extensive traveling and training, she has titled several different dogs in several different protection sports, dock diving, agility, weight pull and rally. She earned a national certification through American Rescue Dog Association for her human remains detection K9 Rad-ish.
Crystal is the Training Director for Evolution Working Dog Club located in St. Louis, Mo. She has a podcast called What's On Top: Chasing Curiosity with Crystal Wing and she co-hosted 151 episodes of the K9 Detection Collaborative podcast. She gives seminars across the country on play, engagement, functional obedience and detection dog training. She owns CBK9 in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. She is an instructor at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and was an instructor at K9Sensus Foundation in Iowa.
