Fenzi Food For Thought

So many thoughts. How can we learn to be more critical learners, observers, and communicators? How can we face our own bias and become stronger as a result? Who can we talk to when we have questions? Covered a lot of territory in this one. Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Maybe allow people who are different into your world, and then you can learn about them. Learn about people, and you can have an impact. Don’t allow people into your world and don’t learn about them? Then you can’t do much beyond ignoring (best case scenario) or antagonizing (worst case) others who feel differently than you. Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Do aversives cause aggression? If so, why are famous trainers using them and showing well-balanced dogs? What does the research say? I’m not a scientist, so mostly I can tell you what I see around me, and my thoughts on the matter. If you’re interested, check it out. Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Should dogs roam the neighborhood? How about near busy roads? How about a quiet rural area? How about chickens - can they roam? Why or why not? If someone else has a different opinion about this than you for each type of animal, how might you change their perspective via education and perspective taking? Or do you opt for embarrassment and shaming? How’s that working?   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

I hope those of us in the Dog industry stop talking about “them”. “They” can speak for themselves. If you have a question, ask “them.” When you make assumptions about why people do what they do, or say nasty things about their character because they don’t share your opinions? That reflects on you and it makes it very difficult to have honest conversations when you’re present because you ruin goodwill, listening and striving for understanding.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

What relationship-based training means to me. I give the example of an informal recall with my dog. Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Super informal chat with Bryndon Golya, CDBC of OC Canine Coaching about management, training, medication, giving “enough” to our dogs and…plenty in between!   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

This live covers follower questions sparked by a panel hosted by Jo-Rosie Haffenden.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

The solution to the Dog Trainer people is to be like the chicken people. In this live I talk about roosters. If the dog people were like the chicken people, we could make radical advances in our field. Take a listen. Tell me what you think.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Train your dog! Even if you don’t reach 100%, who cares? You’re still ahead of where you were if you hadn’t trained at all.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

In this live I talk about why I do bite sports.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Train the dog in front of you. What does that mean? Seeing as I wrote a book with this title, I have opinions about it! Two dogs can have the same issue, and the solutions can be radically different. At the end of the day, you have to know your dog… I give examples in this live to help you understand the concept.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

If you like the minutiae of dog training, you might like this live. Here I talk about the challenge I have with my dog in the Mondio ring search exercise… He prefers to bite than to bark! I talk about a “good training” solution which involves breaking it down into small pieces…small splits are good dog training. I talk about the fact that it didn’t work. I talk about brainstorming to come up with an answer. And what all of this makes me think about? One challenge of training dog sports with positive reinforcement is lack of tradition around solutions to problems. Of course this is not a problem in Dog sports that are traditionally positive reinforcement based, but it absolutely is in sports with little to no tradition of +r problem-solving, because these sport have rather few +r folks playing the game.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Does positive reinforcement training mean withholding half of the information the dog needs to to be successful? Would the dog find more clarity if you included aversives? Would that actually be a relief to the dog? I give my thoughts on that here.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Life is complex. Dogs are one piece of the puzzle of complexity. Be open to the challenge of varied perspectives. Be respectful! And try to make things better. Dog trainers can do that. You’re more than a dog trainer. You can change lives, and I’m not just making that up.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Your words are your power. Do not take someone else’s words to placate them. Choose your words carefully. Explain what you need to explain. And reserve the right to say… It depends. I need more information. Getting a group of people together is easy when you simplify complex topics. Who doesn’t appreciate simplicity? Well. Me. As long as life remains complex, I will explain in as many words as I need to say what I want to say. Don’t give your power away. Choose your words thoughtfully, and insist that others respect what you said as opposed to what they think they heard. or maybe what they wanted to hear. what words did you say? Pain, uncomfortable? Aversive? Management? A training tool? Be specific, and insist that others respect your words, or end the conversation.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Continuing on with basic principles around force free training. Here I introduce counter conditioning, desensitization and habituation. Xen was along for the ride, so he illustrates some of the principles - what do you do when it gets too intense?   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Does reinforcement history or emotion/instinct drive behavior? Both. Emotion drives “behavior” - the general category of things we do. And reinforcement history drives the specific behavior which the learner chooses, from amongst all of the available options. The challenge here is that the word “behavior” means both the general category and a specific choice of a specific behavior. Both are happening. I spend a few extra minutes talking about this during this live. Plus - note how adorable my dog is. I mean…I can barely stand his cuteness!

Today, I explored where most force free behaviorists would start looking at a problem behavior… At the root! What matters less than the behavior in front of you is where it’s coming from. What instincts or emotion are fueling it? If you can identify that, and do some thing about it, your behavior problem might simply disappear. Obviously that’s your best case scenario but… It’s still where you want to start. Because more often then you might think that is the solution.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy

Today I talk about the difference between training and management, and I give several examples to help you on your way.   Follow my training! Instagram The High Drive Dog More online training! Fenzi Dog Sports Academy