Category: Videocasts

Free resources for anyone who wants to take their dog training skills to the next level

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A friend (who already knows quite a bit!) recently asked me where to learn more about dog training – and I started putting this list together. It’s not complete (there are so many great resources out there!), and the order is random: I just went in the order I thought of things. There is no deeper meaning or ranking to it. I have not read every single post, listened to every single podcast episode, or seen every single video on the Youtube channels recommended (except for my own content). However, if a resource is mentioned in this post, it is because it has caught my attention, and I have seen/read/listened to and enjoyed at least some of its content. My list is not restricted to any particular training philosophy.

Youtube channels

Kikopup (Emily Larlham)
Free Ranging Dogs (occasional videos about body language and canine behavior)
Nate Schoemer
School of Canine Science (Nando Brown, Jo-Rosie, Dean Nicholas)
Leerburg Dog Training (Michael Ellis, Forrest Micke, Ed Frawley et al.)
Next Level Dogs (Jay Jack)
Pat Stuart

Podcasts

The Canine Paradigm (Glenn Cooke & Pat Stuart)
Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast (Melissa Breau)
Drinking from the Toilet (Hannah Branigan)
Cog Dog Radio (Sarah Stremming)
Animal Training Academy podcast (Ryan Cartlidge)
The Bitey End of the Dog (Michael Shikashio)
The Functional Breeding Podcast (Jessica Hekman)
… and of course my new podcast: Our One Wild and Precious Lives (and our dogs) (Chrissi & Peter McGarry)
Something to Bark About (Chad Mackin)
Dog Training Conversations (Jay Jack & Chad Mackin)
Working Dog Radio (Ted Summers, Eric Stanbro, Alesha Brandt)
Dog Talk with Dr. Jen (Jennifer Summerfield)
GRC Dog Talk (Jay Jack)
Fenzi Food for Thought (Denise Fenzi)
Learn, Laugh, Bark (Jake Schneider)
Yolopup
CAAWAT (Constructional Approach to Animal Welfare and Training) (Sean Will & Maasa Nishimuta)
Training without Conflict (Ivan Balabanov)
Knackfrosch & Gummistiefel (German language; Eva Berginc & Florian Schneider)

Blogs

This one, of course!
Fenzi Dog Sports Blog
Dr. Jen’s Blog
Eileen Anderson
The Collared Scholar
Patricia McConnell
Shade Whitesel
Denise Fenzi
Deb Jones
Sue Alexander
Tania Lanfer
Kayla Fratt
Sarah Stremming

Facebook

Denise Fenzi puts out lots of public high-quality dog training content
I publicly post free dog-related resources too (some of the time, when I’m in an FB mood)

Other stuff

Growing up FDSA (free e-book)
Free webinar on conservation dog training by Kayla Fratt of K9 Conservationists
Free webinar by Marco Ojeda and Chrissi on the free-roaming dogs of Mexico and Guatemala
Free presentation by Barbara Heidenreich: the secret life of if/then contingencies
Jay Jack’s foundation training plan – lots of free information and example videos outlining Jay’s approach


If you have your own recommendations for FREE resources, leave them in the comments! I’ll remove advertising and recommendations for paid content. Apart from that – go ahead and share away! Add a link, what type of resource it is, and why you are recommending it!

Travel Thoughts E4: On Loud Neighborhoods, and Things That no longer bother me

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Another Travel Thoughts video that has nothing to do with dogs. (Skip this one, too, if you’re here for the dog content.) I just published a dog related blog post for all my dog folks though – you should be able to find it right below this post!

Since recording this video, learned that there’s a name for what I’m experiencing: post-traumatic bliss, i.e. the ability to “trivialize the trivial,” “stop doing the things [I] do not wish to do,” to “live entirely in the present rather than in the future or the past” (as Irvin D. Yalom would have it). I highly recommend it – it’s made me a happier person.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Irvine, William B. – The Stoic Challenge

Travel thoughts E3: Superbetter

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Today’s episode has nothing to do with dogs – it’s about Jane McGonigal’s Superbetter game, and how I’ve used it for myself. If you’re not familiar with the concept of gamification, you may want to watch Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk before watching/listening to my video. If you’re here for the dog training, you might want to skip this episode!


Resources mentioned in this episode:

Berne, Eric – Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis

Brown, Brené – Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

Brown, Brené – Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Brown, Brené – Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

McGonigal, Jane – SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully

McGonigal, Jane – TED Talk: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life

Lerner, Harriet – The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

Lerner, Harriet – Mothers and Daughters: Breaking the Patterns that Keep You Stuck

Epic win – check!

Travel thoughts E1: dog/dog sociability

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I had fun with The Brindle Girl series, and decided to do more video-style posts. I’m hoping this will tie me over until I go back to speaking in front of groups of people. I was going to record these while driving across Guatemala and Mexico – but it turned out that the AC blasting and the car were too much background noise. So I’m only recording these post road trip. They are still travel thoughts, so I’m keeping the name!

The first video post below is my musings about dog/dog sociability. After recording this, I remembered that I recently learned something that contradicts my anecdotal experience: dog breeds, it turns out, are much less predictive of an individual’s behavior and personality traits than we conventionally think they are.

How do we know that? As of today (May 27, 2021), the Darwin’s Ark project has analyzed 3,056,323 answers provided by the owners of 29,233 dogs. At the 2021 Lemonade Conference, Elinor Karlsson explained their approach in a captivating talk that was amazingly understandable even for someone like me, with zero training in data analysis or statistics. If you get a chance to catch one of her presentations – make sure you don’t miss it!

Based on what Elinor Karlsson and colleagues have found, you should take my video musings with a grain of salt! So before you watch my video – here’s the scientific caveat:

In relation to predicting sociability, we’ve learned two things from Darwin’s Ark:

  1. An individual dog’s behavior and personality traits can not accurately be predicted if all we know is their breed.
  2. Dog breeds have some subtle differences in behavior and personality when compared to all (pet) dogs.
    However, these differences are not clear for all factors examined in the Darwin’s Ark project. For example, there are no statistically significant breed differences when it comes to factors like agonistic threshold, and dog sociability – two factors relevant to my musings below.