The August term of Fenzi classes ended yesterday. Taking two golds, two in person classes, and a bronze, all while starting back at university left me little time to document here too. I’m finding I am a little burnt out! So I decided that for the October session, I am going to take my first semester off since I found FDSA. I figure with over 25 courses in my library, I can find something to work on.
Sei
This was hard. There are so many classes we could work on right now. Get Focused, Relationship Building Through Play, Engagement, Shaping, Toys – Developing Cooperation and Play, Empowerment, Co-op Care, Baby Genius (because it kind of slipped off the radar in August. Oops), Obedience Starter Games, so many choices! To narrow it down, I decided to choose one from each of these categories:
- Relationship Building
- Life Skills
- Training Skills
This let me narrow it down to
- Toys – Developing Cooperation and Play
- Baby Genius
- Shaping
- I have done a bit of shaping with Sei, and have observed that his brain works much differently than Perrin’s (unsurprisingly, they are very different dogs!). I also learned that a lot of my ‘shaping skills’ are actually ‘how to shape Perrin’ skills. I decided that it would be beneficial for all three of us for me to go back and re-do the class that started it all, and work through it from the beginning with Sei rather than relying on my Perrin-specific mechanics.
I may sneak some quick nose work fundamentals in there too, because I have a sneaking suspicion that Sei will enjoy it. I wanted to run through the whole course, but we have more pressing things to be working on.
Perrin
Perrin’s interest in training sky rocketed once he was no longer the only dog in the house. He has been a little short changed lately with the puppy, so I want to get some plans going for him as well. I have just finished up the last class portion of the Canine Fitness Trainer program, and need to start on my case studies. Perrin has a lot of ‘in the works’ things: I would like to finish up his novice parkour title, get started on his cyber rally and cyber freestyle skills and videos, start shaping the last few tricks for his master trick dog title, start filming his TEAM 1 videos, as well as make some progress on cooperative care skills. Looking at what is likely to happen between now and the middle of November, as well as what is the most pressing, I decided on:
- Completing Perrin’s case study as one of the four I need for my Fitness Trainer Certificate
- This will require me to decide which area’s I would like to work on with Perrin, develop a program for him, follow it and document his progress and his results. I would like to get this done before it snows, because I do not have much in the way of indoor equipment.
- Shaping 1 new trick for his master trick dog title
- This will go well with me going back to basics with Sei’s shaping in terms of time commitment
- Finish the videos for Perrin’s novice parkour title.
- I have most of the videos taken, and even though I don’t have much access to different environmental features here, I have enough video footage ‘in the wild’ that I can meet the title requirements by finishing the last few skills in my back yard.
I have goals, whoohoo! Now to make a schedule and a plan…
Adventures in Dog Training 