Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - BH285: Control Unleashed Pattern Games for Sports and Life Skills

Course Details

This class is for dogs who have trouble with the environmental conditions they meet in their life with you. Is your dog aroused by other dogs, afraid of new people, stimulated by motion, or anxious about change? Take this class with Julie Daniels CCUI (Certified Control Unleashed Instructor) to learn the foundation CU pattern games. Whether your dog stresses up or down, the Control Unleashed patterns developed by Leslie McDevitt can help!

Julie will help you analyze the elements of difficulty in your situation and apply the CU principles before your dog reacts negatively to their environment. Julie is also TAGteach certified, which will help you streamline communication with your dog. We try to work in small errorless loops as we build the power of the patterns.

There will be attention to detail, including clean mechanics and your dog’s emotional state throughout the exercises. Special attention will be paid to building three different areas of proficiency:

~ the Arrival Skill Set
~ the Sudden Change Skill Set
~ the Sports Skill Set

A few additional points of interest: The Silver students in this class will have the opportunity to submit up to 2 minutes of video. This time may be split any way you like. Multiple short videos might be more useful in this class.

This class is for any dog who has big feelings about the environment. It's very useful for sport dogs and it's equally useful for stay-at-home dogs who react on a walk or when company comes.

Join me for this debut class. You’ll have a great time and you’ll learn a lot!

Teaching Approach

This is a hands on training class, with attention to details of handler mechanics and training practices. We will also be looking closely at your dog's emotional state throughout the learning and practice sessions. The CU games depend upon a "dog's choice" approach, and we'll address how to build cooperation without coercion.

We use a lot of food treats during the training. Kibble is commonly used rather than high-value treats, but of course your dog may vary and there is room for individual differences. The patterns are more easily taught with food than with toys because we need several reps in a row with a structured movement cycle to create the pattern.

There will be lectures to explain the "why" as well as the "how" of each pattern game. There will be multiple lectures each week. All of the active homework assignments will be published in the first several days of each week to allow time for practice.

Silver students in this class will have the opportunity to submit up to 2 minutes of video, divided any way you like.

This class will have a Teacher's Assistant (TA) available in the Facebook study group to help the bronze and silver students! Directions for joining that Facebook group will be in the classroom after you register. The TA for this class is also a CCUI.

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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CONTROL UNLEASHED (CU) Pattern Games for Sports and Life Skills

WEEK 1 - CU Foundations - The Power of Calm. From Clean Mechanics to Clear Thinking. How to Create Calm Step by Step the CU Way. The first Patterns to teach, the How and the Why. Get to know CU breathing and CU "Down and Chill" mat work. "Trust through Touch" exercises personalized for your dog.

WEEK 2 - The Arrival Skill Set - How to teach the patterns and when to use each one. Getting the most from the patterns sequentially. How to get focus through a "Dog's Choice" training approach. Being Prepared! The all-important Antecedents. What to have at the ready and how to use it.

WEEK 3 - Worry-free Transitions - More patterns! The "Order of Events," how it works and why it matters. Using combinations of patterns for different transitions, which pattern when, the how and the why of using them together. Getting from here to there through spaces big and small. Training a "problem" dog without causing a problem!

WEEK 4 - The Sudden Change Skill Set - How to prepare for the unexpected! Patterns for tolerating Sudden Environmental Change. Patterns for empowering curiosity when people or other dogs appear or move. How to be your dog's advocate, preventing unwanted interactions. Teaching your dog to be a Reporter instead of a Reacter.

WEEK 5 - Getting to Yes! How to use CU patterns to teach your dog to request approach or to be approached. How to give your dog the power of "NO" and how to show respect for that choice. And the underestimated power of "Not Yet."

WEEK 6 - The Sports Skill Set - Patterns for taking turns. Voluntary Sharing. How to use patterns to cue arousal up and down. Staying connected when the outside world gets busy.

Prerequisites & Supplies

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There are no prerequisites for this class. A basic familiarity with clicker training or mark-and-reward positive reinforcement training will be helpful but is not required. Some of the games will benefit from use of a clicker but other games specifically do not. Most of the patterns use food as reinforcement and as a diagnostic tool. Dogs at three months of age will be able to learn most of the patterns.

Sample Lecture

Take A Breath (TAB) - By Julie Daniels

Isn't breathing automatic and natural? Well yes, it is. But under stress, breathing automatically becomes rapid and shallow. That's not relaxing for the body or for the mind. So what do our friends tell us when we are stressed? Breathe. Deep breaths, slow breaths, conscious breaths, are calming.

Let's breathe consciously. Let's slow. it. down. Let's breathe in a way that helps us calm ourselves and relax. This is the Take A Breath game, as useful for your dog as it is for you.

It is easy and fun to learn to see how your dog breathes. The dog in this picture is a friend of mine, an Elkhound named Rogue who is sniffing for the treat he is expecting. Notice the forward thrust of the nose, the closed mouth and most of all the wide open nostrils. That is what we mean by "nostril flare." Some dogs show a pouf of air in the nasal cavity, which presents as a lift in the soft part of the nose just behind the top of the nostril. Some dogs' nostrils expand mostly at the front, as Rogue is doing, and others expand more at the sides.

Nose of Rogue

However your own dog's nose responds as they breathe in, you can become the expert on what it looks like. And as you practice noticing and rewarding each breath, your dog will learn to breathe on purpose. They begin to lift their face and show you what a good breather they are. No kidding!

Leslie McDevitt credits Dr. Karen Overall with founding the importance of teaching our dogs to breathe as an operant exercise, a trained behavior. Dr. Overall was Leslie's mentor long before Control Unleashed took shape. You may have heard of Dr. Overall's Relaxation Protocol, also instrumental in teaching Leslie about how to help anxious and reactive dogs.

TAKE A BREATH, the "Why" by Dr. Karen Overall and the "How" by Leslie McDevitt

"Heart rate, attentiveness, and respiratory rate are all linked. If we can teach a human or a dog to take slower, deeper breaths, they relax, their heart rate decreases, and they can be more attentive to focusing on the task at hand.These responses are all coupled to changes in hormonal and other chemical signals that shift the brain's and body's reactivity from a system ready to act on a threat to one ready to focus on learning." -

- Dr. Karen L Overall

Here is Leslie McDevitt's description of how to start teaching TAB, from her book Control Unleashed - Reactive to Relaxed

"Hold a piece of food in your palm and make a fist. Bring it just over your dog's nose so that they will air scent the food in your hand. The moment your dog sniffs, open your fist and feed your dog. We are looking for slight movement in the nostrils."

"We don't use a clicker or a verbal marker in this exercise, because we want it to be a quiet, natural, low-key learning process."

My Own Dogs and TAB

Among my own dogs, Sport was a classic nostril flare dog right from the start. His air intake near the treat looked a lot like Rogue plus a widening to the side of the nostrils. Easy peasy. By contrast, my little Koolaid was more complicated. I ended up holding the treat up beside my own nose, and that worked perfectly because I could see her nostrils better when she looked up at the treat. I like how it turned out by doing it that way. With my own dogs and with my students' dogs, it always works better when we do not use a clicker for this exercise. Keep the energy low and work on your quick treat delivery.

Now Koolaid loves to point her little nose up at me to show me what a calm breather she is. Adorable. And SO useful! I can only wish I had taught this game first thing, the way Leslie has always advised and now the way I'm advising you. Perhaps you're thinking as I was. When I started working with CU, I dived right into active pattern games and didn't come back to TAB until I decided to work towards CCUI certification. Don't be like me! Through my own dogs and now dozens of others as well, I have learned the value of conscious breathing as the first CU game. Teach your dog to take a conscious breath. TAB is our first game because it is foundational to calm thinking and relaxed focus.

Julie Daniels

Testimonials & Reviews

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

OMG! OMG!! OMG!!! There could not have been a better first class for me to take with my new puppy. Julie is, of course, AMAZING!!!! I never felt like I had to “get through” all the lectures, and I spent a lot of time on one seemingly simple exercise. Julie helped me again and again to get towards the intended end result. I just can’t say enough good things abut the class.

Julie is the kind of person the things that seem so obvious once she's said it! It's not complicated or scary. It's not some arcane alchemy. It's just a simple 1 + 1 = 2. Tada! Putting her "dog's choice" methods to Leslie's pattern games is pure magic!

Julie's course is amazing. It is thoughtful, well organized, and full of detail--I'll be working at these skills and using them forever. My dog is a 2 year old mix (mainly gun dog breeds), high energy, over-aroused, a bit worried about the world, and not a model of cooperation. The patterns Julie taught are so very helpful. The stationary versions (up and down) and the moving versions (ping pong) are helping us find the right structure for different situations, as well as give me a much better way to gauging how she is feeling in the moment. THANK YOU.

I will definitely continue to practice the skills I learned here - and to revisit this class in the future. There's a lot here and it is well presented - and like with all patterns - its sounds so easy after the fact. and what I've discovered with CU is that - you start out doing something that makes no (or little) sense - seems not to be applicable -and then you see your dog change in response to the patterns in ways you couldn't have predicted. Great Class! Thank you!

Both the course and Julie were fantastic. I have no suggestions to improve the course; Julie's lectures, videos and feedback to Gold and Silver students are very clear. Her support and encouragement to everyone made it a pleasure for me, at Bronze, to follow along. I look forward to taking these skills on the road with my shy girl, once we have built solid foundations at home (currently scrambling to catch up...!). Thank you Julie!

Julie is as kind and perceptive to her human learners as she us to the canines! This course is a revelation, a new toolbox of skills that can be applied hundreds of ways. And the opportunity to work with such a caring, gifted practitioner is one you don’t want to pass up. I loved this class.

Julie is very attuned to each dog and handler team. All of her feedback is detailed and individualized and builds on the strengths of each team. Her encouragement to submit short daily videos kept the class, and me as a Gold participant, continually working to implement the new methodology. Julie's beliefs and methodology are so totally aligned with Leslie's that she is the perfect person to be teaching this CU class.

I’ve been a bit behind but just had the best dog walk ever on a weekend nonetheless with my stranger reactive dog who can be quite vigilant. She is noticeably more calm after some up/down ping pong rounds and it seems like such a better way for her to process triggers vs just “look at that” which she’s pretty good at, but this really kicked it up a notch. The patterns were easy for us to learn at home and effective outside in a way that nothing else has been. Hoping to keep it up and that my dog continues to find it motivating! Thanks so much! I feel like everyone needs to know about these games and try them out :)

I thought the written instructions were very clear, and easy to execute. The short videos were easy to follow making steps clear. Facebook feedback was helpful and positive, and helped to clear the way to be a better trainer and made for a successful dog. Once again I learned lots, and it was fun to do. I was excited to see my best dog friend progress so easily, and see progressive changes in his behavior. Well done.

This class was a game changer for Jazz and I. A couple of the patterns are now in daily use, and we are a huge step further towards our goal of being able to just sit and chill on cafe patio.

Registration

Next session starts: December 1, 2023
Registration starts: November 22, 2023
Registration ends: December 15, 2023

Registration opens at 10:00am Pacific Time.

BH285 Subscriptions

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Tuition	$ 260.00	$ 130.00	$ 65.00
Enrollment Limits	10	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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