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    Course Schedule

    First day of class:

    April 1, 2018

     Last day of class:

     Dec 15, 2018

    Enrollment begins:

    Nov 22, 2018

    Enrollment ends:

    Dec 15, 2018

    Tuition:

    $65-$260 / $49-$149

    Class length:

    6 weeks / 3 weeks

    New students: your account will be created automatically when you enroll in your first class.

       **Schedule Information Subject to Changes**

    • Agility
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    DS380: Push it! Treibball Foundations and Problem Solving

    Course Details

    TReibball pic

    Want to build your distance control and connection with your dog while participating in a great new sport? Or maybe you’ve always been fascinated by herding, but don’t have sheep. Check out Treibball! 

    Sometimes called “ball herding” or “urban herding,” treibball is a cross between billiards and soccer that you play with your dog. It’s perfect for a dog who is retired from other sports, dogs new to the sports world, or reactive dogs (since most venues restrict access to the competition field). 

    Melissa has earned her CH. title on her german shepherd Riley through the American Treibball Assoc., however students are welcome regardless of their venue of choice. 

    Come learn about this relatively new dog sport!

      

    This class is structured for beginner and advanced teams alike. Lectures will cover the basic rules of the game and the foundation skills through to novice to get beginners started. However, more advanced players are welcome to join at Gold or Silver for problem solving and additional help including (but not limited to) help with: control around the balls & stimulus control for pushing, not biting the balls, directionals, steering, adding distance, building confidence for the game, and more.

    Please note: All lectures in this class will be released on the first day of the class, to allow students at different levels to work on the skills they need most. Students are encouraged to work at their own pace. 

    Teaching Approach

    This class will take a step by step approach. Each step will have written instructions with a corresponding video of each step. Videos tend to be short, with the occasional video that is a bit longer demonstrating one piece at a time. Lectures are released in one batch at the beginning of the class — then students work at their own pace. Feedback will mostly be written, however for gold students I will occasionally do a screen recording if I think the student might benefit from feedback on timing.  

    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. 

     

    Melissa BreauInstructor: Melissa Breau

    Melissa (she/her) is FDSA's resident marketing geek. She teaches two classes here at FDSA: Marketing for Pet Professionals and Building a Wordpress Website.

    Syllabus

    View Full Syllabus

    How to use this class

    Foot Target

    Find the Cookies - Yoga Mat

    Reinforcement Strategies for Treibball

    Go Where I point

    Find the Target - Step 1

    Watch / Check In Cue

    Sit / Down at a distance

    Learning to Push (foam roller)

    How to Reward Pushing

    Other Pushing Games

    Find the Target - Step 2

    Find the Target - Step 3

    Find the Target - Adding a Ball

    Find Two Targets - Step 1

    Find Two Targets - Step 2

    Adding Distance

    Learning how to push the ball

    Find Two Targets - Step 3 

    Moving Sideways between Balls (Building Work Between Reinforcers)

    Fading the target

    Adding Distance

    Find the Target / Push the Ball

    Moving Between Balls (2-3 ball)

    Push through resistance

    How many can you push?

    Teaching the Point Cue

    2 Ball - Find the Farthest Ball 

    Fading the Target for Point

    Teaching the starting position (ATA)

    Putting it all together

     

    Problem Solving:

    Dog is biting and popping balls

    Dog doesn't like pushing balls into each other

    Dog is struggling to steer

    Dog is bringing in the wrong balls

    Prerequisites & Supplies

    View all Prerequisites & Supplies

    Recommended Supplies for this class include:

    At least 1 exercise ball (in later weeks you may want 2-3 if you're new to treibball; students with prior experience may want up to a full field of 8). The right size ball for your dog will be dependent on the organization you want to compete in — here are links to NATE's guidelines, which is the organization I'm currently focusing on for the class.

    A xpen or other item to use as a "goal" 

    A xpen, Julie Flanery's gates, or other items that can be used to create a "channel" to help teach your dog to push (2 crates, or a crate and a wall or an xpen and a wall etc all work perfectly well. We should be able to find something you already have for this, so don't feel like you need to purchase something new)

    3 foot targets (a small piece of cardboard works fine; other popular options are pieces of a cut up yoga mat, or tupperware lids)

    OPTIONAL:

    A rolled up yoga mat or foam roller

    A large toy car (like those designed for toddlers) that your dog could learn to push

    Sample Lecture

    More
     

    Once we’ve introduced the concept of pushing an object with our nose to find cookies, this is a fairly easy concept for us to transfer to other objects.

    Today we’re going to begin to introduce this concept with a ball.

    Equipment:

    1 ball

    Channels (or something to use as channels - can be almost anything! Be creative....)

    How to Teach Your Dog to Push the Ball

    To begin to teach our dog to push, we’re basically going to make it as easy for them to do the right thing as possible.

    So we’ll set up our ball in a “channel” so that there’s no way your dog can push the ball in the wrong direction, and lay out a row of cookies behind the ball, so as your dog pushes the ball they reveal cookies to eat! And to get to the cookies, they have to push the ball.

    Here is Levi’s very first try at this game - again, he’s a little unsure, so you can see how I “help” him a bit, when he gets stuck during his first try at this new thing. But he picks it up pretty quick! This video shows both his first and his second try at this new game. 

    You’ll notice that my channel is narrow enough that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t get around the ball to get the cookies behind it. As he progresses, I’ll place my cookies a little further apart, and then eventually fade them entirely. 

    Here’s another team working on this — this is Alycia and Coulee again! You can see she’s using fewer cookies than I needed with Levi; they’re set so that he can do a good push and then discover a cookie… really nicely spaced for his skill level. And Alycia has gotten pretty creative with her channel too!

    And then finally, here’s Amanda and Pogo - Pogo here is at the point where he’ll push the cookie the entire channel and then gets his cookie at the end. She’s using a crate and an xpen as her channels here!

    Testimonials & Reviews

    Read All Testimonials

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

    Melissa was very helpful and guided us through Mickey's over-arousal issue with the ball. He tends to go 'cray-cray' whenever he sees a big ball, and I was afraid we would never get past that, but Melissa really helped us build his impulse control! I am confident we will actually be able to go for titles in this sport! Mickey has come a long way, and we have enjoyed the Treiball class immensely. It has been a lot of fun. Both my dogs, even the 13 year old, have enjoyed playing the games. 


    It really helped keep my energy, motivation and focus up with advancing my skills in this area. I get easily distracted by the business of training and often lose focus on doing these big, dedicated training education pieces. SO glad I did this!


    This was a fantastic course with so many benefits to both trainers and dogs alike. It really helped me focus in on and refine my technical skills while having a lot of fun doing it. Treibball training also requires a lot of problem solving and creativity which I really appreciated. It definitely made me think more about the needs of my dog, the environment and setting achievable criteria. It was much more complex than I anticipated but I had so much fun seeing the progress we made each session, the reward was a huge payoff for the work! Melissa made this a fun, highly-motivating training course that brings out the best in every handler and dog. She was so positive and her feedback was absolute gold. I am really glad I did this course and can't wait to keep progressing in this sport!     


    Thank you, it was so fun to learn something that is completely new to both me and my dog! We progressed well through the class exercises and the lectures made it easy to see what I needed to do, as well as offering a bigger picture view which I needed since it's a brand new sport to me. Fabulous class!            


    Melissa is very encouraging and is great about encouraging us to adapt training styles to the individual dog and owner team. She gives great feedback and will do her best to ensure the team succeeds. 


    I can't speak highly enough of Melissa. She was endlessly helpful, great at troubleshoot, explained every element really clearly and her feedback was so positive and personal. It made a huge difference!

    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 opens at  9:30am Pacific Time.

    DS380 Subscriptions


    Gold

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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 ✔ ✔ ✖
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    Find more details, refund policies and answers to common questions in the Help center.

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