Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - FE160: It's All Tricks!

Course Details

In our opinion, dog training really is "all tricks." There's no distinction between "serious" work and "fun" work. It's all fun if you're doing it right!

Teaching tricks can, however, lead to huge and long-lasting benefits for your competition work. Far from being silly and inconsequential, tricks can be the building blocks for more advanced work. Trick training helps you form a strong and mutually enjoyable working relationship with your dog. Teaching tricks gives you valuable training experience by allowing you to practice a variety of techniques (shaping, luring and targeting), develop a training plan for a behavior from start to finish, improve your timing, and set criteria appropriately. And most importantly, trick training is just plain fun!

The tricks we will focus on in this class will have application to competition training and showing. Left and right spins, hand touches, backing up, weaving between your legs, sitting up, paw touches, chin rest, take a nap, go to bed, and play dead are some of the tricks we will work on. In addition to teaching these tricks, we will talk about how they can help improve your dog's focus, lower his stress level, and make teaching competition behaviors much easier.

Students will work at their own level and pace. If your dog already knows the basic trick behavior, we will add more challenges by working on distraction and stimulus control. There are also an infinite number of variations to each trick. Although this course is appropriate for dogs of all ages (puppies through seniors), and at all levels of training, please carefully consider your dog's physical and mental state awhen choosing and training tricks.

Here's a trailer showing some of the tricks we'll be working on:

Instructor: Deborah Jones

Deborah Jones, Ph.D. (she/her) is a psychologist who specializes in learning theory and social behavior. She taught a variety of psychology courses at Kent State University for the past 20 years. Deb has been training dogs for performance events for the past 25 years and was an early...(Click here for full bio and to view Deb's upcoming courses)

Syllabus

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For this class we have divided tricks into 5 major categories. Within each category are a variety of tricks at different levels of difficulty. We have indicated when a trick is considered foundation for more advanced tricks.

In addition to instructions and demonstration videos for the tricks you will also receive a series of "how to" lesson plans to help you develop training plans, get behaviors to happen, troubleshoot problems, move to partial reinforcement, and add verbal cues.

Down Tricks:

Go to bed (foundation)

Play dead (foundation)

Frog

Crawl

Roll over

Front Paw Tricks:

Sit up (foundation)

Paw touch (foundation)

Wave

High 5

Hug

Back Paw Tricks:

Two on / two off (foundation)

Back up (foundation)

Back up stairs

Pawstand

Tilt

Back thru legs

Head Tricks:

Chin rest (foundation)

Take a nap

Speak!

Head on lap/leg/foot

Retrieve

Pick up your toys

Ring stack

Spin Tricks:

Left & right spins (foundation)

Perch work (foundation)

Go around (fly or wrap)

Leg weaves

Prerequisites & Supplies

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To get the most out of this class it will be very helpful to have some experience with clicker training and shaping. A food motivated dog is ideal. Dogs that train mainly for toys and play can certainly participate and learn tricks, but their progress is typically slower.

Once you have decided on specific tricks you may then need to acquire props. Many props are things you probably already have around the house. Most others are cheap and easy to obtain.

Sample Lecture

DOWN TRICKS

This category of tricks involves your dog putting his body on the ground in some form.

Go to Bed (Foundation):

This is an extension of mat work that many of you likely taught your pups and young dogs. The mat (bed) becomes a target to send the dog to. The sending away is the central part of this trick. You want to increase distance to the mat carefully over a large number of repetitions.

If you haven’t done any mat work before start here. These are long as they are real time progressions with a puppy:

If you already have a basic mat behavior, then start adding distance:

Play Dead (Foundation):

Play Dead can take on many unique forms. It seems many dogs have their own individual flair to this trick. The goal is for your dog to lie either on his side perfectly still or upside down on his back. Lack of movement is the vital aspect of this trick.

With a lure:

On cue:

Frog:

The frog trick involves your dog kicking his legs straight out behind him while he is on his stomach in a down position. Some pups and dogs do this naturally. The easiest way to start this trick is to lure your dog over a cushion or large pillow so that he stretches over it. This will lead to the correct positioning.

Using a medium sized pillow to encourage her back legs to stretch out.

Close to a finished version.

On cue. Discriminating between down, take a nap, and frog:

Crawl:

In a down position your dog crawls or creeps forward, remaining on the ground. Getting your dog to move forward while keeping his body on the ground, is the challenge here. Luring or targeting typically works well for this trick as long as you move your hand or the target forward slowly and carefully.

Crawl to a hand touch:

Adding distance to the crawl:

An advanced variation on crawl. Crawling along in heel position:

Roll Over:

From a down position your dog rotates his body one complete revolution. Once you have taught ‘Play Dead’ this is simply a continuation of the movement.

In this video we are using a combination of shaping and luring. We are also lumping a bit too much. Luckily for us, Star gets it anyways!

Here are some more typical progressions, still using luring to start:

Testimonials & Reviews

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The Tricks class was wonderful! I had been struggling with how to train new behaviors, especially through shaping, and this class was very helpful. It's given both my dog and me more confidence in training and we enjoy our training sessions more! I also like how "tricks training" is lower pressure than "formal training", but many tricks are very useful for future formal obedience training. And most importantly, I feel like my relationship with my dog has improved through this class and we're working more as a team. Yay! Leah O.

Deb Jones' classes are the best! Well organized and easy to follow. What I really love is that she shows you what to do if you get stuck as I so often do. Looking forward to more of her courses.

I can't recommend this class strongly enough. It might seem like it's a distraction if you're focused on a specific goal, but if you're having trouble figuring out the way to train a particular dog, if you and your dog have relationship issues or don't feel like a team, if you get frustrated at your lack of progress toward your 'real' goal, this class can help. For me, it removed the stress of not getting to that shiny training goal (going in the ring, getting legs, whatever) and let me concentrate on what I was doing and what my dog was learning (and what I was learning). If we're learning a trick and things get off track and we have to back up--so what? It's 'just' a trick. Now I know--it's all tricks. Deb C.

I started taking classes here because I wanted to build my relationship with Blue. This class not only did that, it me develop better problem solving skills, it removed the emotional component and the stress of getting competition ready. Trick skills don't matter (although of course they do) and I could assess in a way I hope will carry over into all my training.

I couldn't be more pleased to have taken part in this class, even at the bronze level! I learned so much, and will be signing up again for the next session! My only problem is picking which class - as there are so many great ones! Tina K.

Registration

This is a self-study class. The lectures will appear directly in your library, under the "Self Study classes" heading. Self Study classes do not have class homework forums. You will not have any access to the course instructor for questions or feedback. Please note there are no refunds on self-study classes so review all the information provided carefully before purchasing.

You will have access to these materials in your library for one year from the date of enrollment. You can keep your library pass current by enrolling in at least one course or workshop a year. Alternatively, you can purchase a library pass for $25 per year for as long as you wish to have access to prior class materials.

FE160 Self Study

	Self Study
Tuition	$ 50.00
Enrollment Limits	Unlimited
Access all course lectures and materials	✔

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Course Schedule

FE160: It's All Tricks!

Course Details

Self Study