Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast

Petra Ford, competitive obedience trainer who builds national-caliber engagement in dogs. She defines true engagement versus blank staring. She explains how to teach engagement from early weeks and proof it around distractions. She covers acclimation and ring-ready routines, handler focus and communication, and what her six-week engagement class emphasizes.

Nicole Wiebusch, a dog trainer and competitor known for obedience, rally, and foundation skills, explains teaching stillness as a foundation for rock-solid stays. She discusses why stillness is uniquely challenging, signs dogs show when frustrated, games and foundations that build impulse control, and strategies for slowly increasing duration while preserving confidence.

Jennifer Kunst, PhD, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who applies depth-psychology to everyday life. She explores embracing reality, choosing change, and surrendering control in relation to dogs and training. Conversations include managing trauma and reactivity, resisting overhelping, letting dogs lead, and finding purpose and joy in the work.

Irith Bloom, a Los Angeles behavior-focused trainer; Jane Ardern, a Lancashire cocker spaniel handler; Kelly Daniel, a canine physiology and performance specialist; and Christina Young, a sport and behavior trainer. They discuss how arousal works in dogs, signs of helpful versus harmful arousal, flow and handler connection, physiological risks, and practical strategies to teach dogs better arousal regulation.

Irith Bloom, animal behavior specialist and trainer who teaches behavior-science approaches. She defines demand barking and contrasts it with other bark types. She explains why 'just ignore it' often fails and compares barking to gambling. Practical tactics and a long-term plan are discussed, including shaping quieter precursors, a 'not now' cue, and environment fixes.

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.

Melissa Breau, a practical, reinforcement-based dog trainer and instructor, explains building reliable real-life recalls. She contrasts ring-style vs real-world recalls. She stresses reinforcement history, choosing effective rewards, using choice games like the magic bowl, proofing against distractions, and when to rebuild a recall cue.

Curious why and how to teach a contact heeling behavior? Contact heeling is a transport behavior distinctly different from formal obedience heelwork or loose leash walking – and in some instances, it offers significant advantages over either of those other options. In this episode Sarah Rida joins me to talk about why she teaches contact heeling, when it can be helpful, and how to actually begin training this useful skill.