Teaching our dogs the concept of "stillness" is more complex than we sometimes realize — after all, how do you teach a dog that what we want is the absence of a behavior? In this episode, Nicole and I talk about how she teaches the concept, and then how it serves as a foundation behavior for teaching rock solid stays to her competition dogs.

In this episode I interview clinical psychologist Dr. Jennifer Kunst about the intersection of dog training and psychology. We look at how her three-strand approach to living a good life—embracing reality, choosing change, and surrendering control—applies to dogs and dog training.

Four of the presenters from the upcoming one day conference, Arousal Modulation: Building a Clear-Headed Dog!, join me for a conversation about how arousal works, why it's not all good or all bad, and what handlers who have dogs that tend toward overarousal should stop doing... then what they should start doing instead.

Dr. Amy Cook and Josefin Linderström, founders of the Social Approach, join me for a deep dive on the topic of touch and our relationships with our dogs. In this episode they share some of the research that's been done on the benefits of touch, their take on how much of our dogs' preferences are nurture vs. nature, and how they'd add touch to training (including as a reinforcer!).

If you're like most dog trainers and handlers out there, you've started training lots of different behaviors that never quite reached a finished and fluent state. In this episode, Julie and I discuss why that happens, the phases behaviors need to go through, and what it takes to get them there. And, of course, she answers the question of whether it's even possible to "finish" training a behavior.

Does your dog have big feelings about dog agility? Whether they love the sport so much they can't contain themselves or have big feelings about new environments, other dogs, or strangers, in this episode Bronagh and I talk about how big feelings impact your dog's agility performance and what you can do about it.

Want your dog to come running when you call them? In this episode Crystal Wing steps in as guest host to talk to Melissa Breau about her upcoming class on building a reliable real-life recall, including why reps matter, how reinforcement history builds a better recall, and what to do if you have a recall cue that your dog has learned to ignore.

Kelly and Ashley join me in this episode to discuss why canine fitness is sometimes overlooked by dog sports teams, how it can help dogs with impulse control, arousal modulation, and emotional fitness, and the difference between quality movement and a dog who is just active in their environment in a less intentional way.

LINKS & RESOURCES:

Ashley's upcoming class, CC210: Patience in the Details: Impulse Control, Body Awareness & Precision Through Conditioning (starts June 1, 2026): https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/2418

Kelly's upcoming class, CC150: FUNctional Foundation Fitness (starts June 1, 2026): https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/45377

Ashley's FDSA instructor page: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/people/786-people/faculty/36119-ashleyescobar

Kelly's FDSA instructor page: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/people/786-people/faculty/39473-kellydaniel

FDSA Course Catalog: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com