Critical Skills Workshops
Our Critical Skills Workshops are intensive courses designed to help your dog develop the essential skills needed to become a well-mannered and well-rounded canine companion. These workshops focus on building fundamental skillsets such as remaining calm in the presence of distractions, overall good manners, loose leash walking, and to come to you when called.
Each Critical Skills Workshop starts with an Intro Talk designed to help you understand how to achieve your desired results with your dog. During this session, we’ll introduce the core theories and training techniques that will be used throughout the workshop. The subsequent classes will use various games and exercises that will equip you with the necessary tools to help your dog develop their skills to a moderate-to-advanced level.
Managing the Mayhem: Connection, Neutrality and Distraction Management
Regardless of your specific training goals, the most crucial skill you can teach your dog is how to remain calm and focused on you, even amidst distractions. The Managing the Mayhem workshop is designed to help your dog develop these essential skills. We’ll begin by helping you strengthen your bond with your dog and understand what motivates them. We’ll introduce various engagement, neutrality and distraction games and exercises, and then slowly introduce various distractions to help proof these exercises.
Skills Include:
- Engagement and pattern games
- Understanding what motivates your dog
- The art of doing nothing (Functional Relaxation exercise)
- Remaining calm with distractions
- Impulse control
- Entering new places calmly
Managing the Mayhem includes four 1-hour group classes (including an Intro Talk) that take place at the same time every week at Tumblewood Canine. Maximum 4 dogs per workshop!
Price: $240+HST for 4-week workshop.
| Upcoming Start Dates | Time | Instructor |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday March 26th | 11:00am-12:00pm | Kim |
Household Manners: Stop or Prevent Common Issues
Household Manners uses a variety of training techniques to help prevent or stop a variety of common household manner issues. This includes how to manage your dog to prevent them from engaging in unwanted behaviours, shape desired behaviours to help your dog build understanding (e.g. impulse control games), and teach commands to help you trouble shoot when your dog has made the wrong decision (e.g. ‘drop-it’ or ‘leave-it’). Our ultimate goal is to equip you with the tools to teach your dog how to make good decisions on their own.
Skills Include:
- Jumping (when greeting people, when excited, for things, for attention…)
- Stealing food and items
- Barking (out the window, for attention, when they want something…)
- Impulse control games (food, doors, toys…)
- Place command
- “Leave-it” command
- “Drop-it” command
- No begging, chasing brooms or vacuums…
The Household Manners workshop includes four 1-hour group classes (including an Intro Talk) that take place at the same time every week at Tumblewood Canine. Maximum 4 dogs per workshop!
Price: $240+HST for 4-week workshop.
| Upcoming Start Dates | Time | Instructor |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday March 26th | 6:00pm-7:00pm | Kim |
| Thursday April 23rd | 6:00pm-7:00pm | Kim |
Loose Leash Fundamentals: No more Pulling
Loose Leash Fundamentals focuses on developing your dog’s loose leash walking skills. We begin by teaching your dog fundamental focus and engagement exercises, and progress towards walking on a loose leash in a low-distraction environment. We then slowly add difficulty by increasing distractions, and coach you on how to ensure successful loose leash walking out in the real world!
Skills Include:
- Focus and engagement games
- Leash respect
- Getting into and building value for being in heel position
- Loose leash walking past distractions
- Greeting people and dogs appropriately
The Loose Leash Fundamentals workshop includes four 1-hour group classes (including an Intro Talk) that take place at the same time every week at Tumblewood Canine. Maximum 4 dogs per workshop!
Price: $300+HST for 5-week workshop.
| Upcoming Start Dates | Time | Instructor |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday March 24th | 6:00pm-7:00pm | Jen |
| Thursday April 30th | 7:15pm-8:15pm | Kim |
Recall Readiness: Teach Your Dog to Come No Matter What
Recall Readiness is designed to teach your dog an emergency recall – to come to you immediately, at top speed, no matter what! We begin by establishing foundational skills: building connection, response to name, impulse control, disengage from distractions, Leave-It, and an Emergency Recall. We then add difficulty by increasing the distance between you and your dog, decreasing your dog’s distance from distractions, and increasing the level of distractions.
Skills Include:
- Ranking your dog’s top distractions
- Understanding how to motivate your dog
- Increasing your dog’s engagement with you
- Improving your dog’s impulse control to various triggers
- Teaching your dog to ‘Leave-It’ on command
- Teaching an Emergency Recall away from various distractions and distances
The Recall Readiness workshop includes four 1-hour group classes (including an Intro Talk) that take place at the same time every week at Tumblewood Canine. Maximum 4 dogs per workshop!
Price: $240+HST for 4-week workshop.
| Upcoming Start Dates | Time | Instructor |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday March 5th | 7:15pm-8:15pm | Kim |
| Tuesday April 28th | 6:00pm-7:00pm | Jen |
“My dog Skye and I just completed the Loose Leash Fundamentals Workshop. We had a great experience and came away improved with lots of new tips and techniques to work on going forward. Our trainer Kim was professional, knowledgeable and more than willing to works with us to meet our needs as well as those of the others in the class. I especially liked the workshop format where you work for a few short weeks on one particular area in more detail than in a general training class. The facilities are excellent and the smaller class size of 4 allows you plenty of time to work with your trainer.”
~ Allan and Skye
