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CC205: Targeting Fitness

  • Overview
  • Syllabus
  • Prerequisites & Supplies
  • Sample Lecture
  • Testimonials & Reviews
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CC205: Targeting Fitness

Course Details

Want to start fitness using targeting? Maybe fine tune your dog’s fitness skills to reduce your dogs luring during exercises. This class is for you!

This class will teach a variety of targeting skills including front foot targeting, rear foot targeting, all feet targeting, individual foot targeting, and face targeting as well as some key weight shift movement skills such as moving body weight forwards, backwards, and sideways. By combining these targeting and movement skills we can create a range of fitness exercises, and teach for understanding quickly. By using targeting we can reduce luring, which can create excessive movement and frustration. We will also look at duration and stillness as concepts for fitness.

This class will suit humans and canines new to fitness, through to more experienced teams. It is able to be adapted to be appropriate for young dogs through to geriatrics. Please note that your dog needs to be sound, and if they have had any lameness or significant orthopedic or health issue may need clearance for fitness training from their main veterinary care provider. Please contact Kelly if you are unsure if this class is appropriate for your dog.

Kelly DanielInstructor: Kelly Daniel

Kelly Daniel (She/her) is a learning and dog training addict. She has been training and competing with her dogs (of various shapes and forms) for around 15 years ...

Syllabus

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Week 1

  • Fitness Guidelines
  • Form and it's importance
  • Reinforcement skills and mechanics
  • Front paw targeting with both feet
  • Rear paw targeting with both feet
  • Differentiating between front and back feet targeting
  • Stillness as a concept

Week 2

  • Individual front paw targeting
  • Individual back paw targeting
  • Face targeting (chin rest, nose target)
  • Duration with reverse luring
  • Base movement skill: sideways movement
  • Base movement skill: backwards movement

Week 3

  • Clear cuing for stillness and movement
  • Starting on duration for individual paw lifting
  • Using a target stick
  • Using movement skills and targeting to change positions
  • Using reinforcement placement to influence head position
  • Positions

Week 4

  • Fine tuning foot placement with silicone target mats
  • Sustained foot lifts
  • Base movement skill: sending around an item (wrapping)
  • Movement between targets for specific fitness exercises
  • Individual foot placement on four different items

Week 5

  • Front end strength exercises
  • Rear end strength exercises
  • Core strength exercises
  • Flexibility and mobility exercises

Week 6

  • Advancing movement based exercise
  • Advancing rear foot targeting exercises
  • Advancing front foot targeting exercises
  • Advancing core exercises
  • Workouts
  • Thanks!

Prerequisites and Equipment

There are no prerequisites other than your dog having clearance (if required) for fitness training. 

 

Equipment

  • Long stable platform
  • Smaller stable platforms 
  • Flat silicone target mats (preferably long and rectangular for two feet)
  • Circular flat silicone target mats
  • Items that dogs can target with with one foot like foot pods (4)
  • Cavaletti poles 

Equipment substitutions and DIY options can be suggested! 

Sample Lecture

More

 

3.1 Clearly cuing to move between movement and stillness

 

Fitness is a great activity because it’s very high in reinforcement rate, we never have to reduce or remove reinforcement, and we are able to use equipment setup and choice to teach exercises in correct form quickly. 

One of the biggest causes of frustration in fitness is a lack of clarity in if movement is, or is not required. An example is for some dogs, if we are using luring to try to adjust form or positioning they can have conflict over when they should take the treats in the hand and move, or stay still. This can either cause frustration or stress, and/or excessive foot movement. 

 

Here  you can see the difference in Grid’s movement (and unwanted movement in particular) when luring, vs using targets and clear movement cues. 

 

The other thing that makes a huge difference in clarity in fitness, and getting stillness and duration in positions is reverse luring. This concept comes from Laura Waudly, and I learnt from Sara Brueske in FDSA classes. 

https://laurawaudby.blogspot.com/2013/02/using-reverse-luring.html

 

For me in fitness I use this with a visual cue (open palm vs closed palm), and then transfer the concept to the bowl to get a focus forward with stillness. 

 

Trip and Amethyst learning: 

Deo getting stillness in positions with reverse luring: 

 

Glitch using reverse luring: 

 

Sage starting to use focus on the bowl: 

 

 

I also use clear cues for when movement is required. I use ‘back’ as a general shift weight backwards cue, specific cues for movement to a target, and target sticks to help with movements with no floor based targets. We can also use verbal cuing of positions to cue movement, such as sit, down, stand. We just need to be very aware that there are different movements into a sit, down, and stand as you can see  in the video below. This means sometimes we need different cues for (for example) a tuck sit vs a sit back sit. 


 

Your task

 - Do you have a clear cue for stillness? 

 - Do you already have clear movement cues? 

 - What positional cues do you already have, and what are the specific criteria of these cues? For example when you cue a sit is this a tuck sit, or a sit back sit? 

List your relevant skills, and make a list of things you need to work on or add. 

 

Testimonials & Reviews

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

Kelly's feedback was super helpful and the training skills I learned in this class generalized to other activities and sports. Fantastic course!     


This is an excellent course. Kelly is a phenomenal teacher, she gives SO much information but not so much that it's overwhelming. The course was extremely well designed and an excellent fit for my foodie Labrador. I would highly recommend this course for dogs like Labradors that can find luring a bit too exciting. Using targeting allows them to think more clearly about what they are doing, but still get all the yummy treats! I've taken all of Kelly's classes and her feedback is comprehensive and she really cares about her students. She goes out of her way to provide exactly what each one needs. My dog has come such a long way.. plus Kelly makes it FUN. She makes me feel I'm doing an awesome job, which is a great bonus. Thank you Kelly, another fantastic class.       


Great class, be prepared to learn alot. I'm looking forward to signing up for another class with Kelly.       


This class has been so much FUN and incredibly useful. While under the umbrella of canine conditioning, the concepts easily fit within cooperative care, tricks, and general training. It's appropriate for all skill levels. I look forward to repeating it, not because I didn't learn enough the first time, but because I know we can continue to build on our new skills. Or, maybe I'll just take it with another dog. I can't wait!     


This class was fantastic. I haven't done much/any targeting in the past, so this was a big jump. I have so many new exercises we can do, and the feedback is helpful and confidence boosting. It helps reassure me that our form is good, and I'm not going to do damage like if I swung a kettle bell wrong. At our vet visit we already got a comment on Champ's hip being stronger! There is so much material that I'll have many avenues to pursue if we want to go further.       


Simply perfect, just like all courses from Kelly Daniel. Looking forward to working with her again!     


Really liked your ability to talk over our video submissions and also point and draw lines where the dog needs to be! Super helpful. I absolutely loved this course. Loads of content and the feedback was great and always kind.

Registration

Next session starts: October 1, 2025
Registration starts: September 22, 2025
Registration ends: October 15, 2025

Registration opens at 10:30am Pacific Time. 

CC205 Subscriptions


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Tuition $ 260.00 $ 130.00 $ 65.00
Enrollment Limits 12 25 Unlimited
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Post general questions to Discussion forum ✔ ✔ ✖
Submit written assignments ✔ ✖ ✖
Post dog specific questions ✔ With video only ✖
Post videos ✔ Up to 2 ✖
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