FE195 Love the One You Are With - Being the Best Team Possible

Week One

Relationship Matters

• Know yourselves
• The Struggle is Real- finding balance
• What is reflection and why it helps
• Motivational Poster

Week Two

The Communication Loop

• The ideal, the real
• Improving Communication
• Planning

Week Three

Matching Goals

• Case Study One
• Gap Identification: Reactivity, Fear, Impulse Control … and more
• Energy Levels: highs and lows

Week Four

Sunshine and Rainbows

• All. The. Sports.
• How Does Change Happen?
• Finding Joy
• Case Study Two ( likely... depends on class)

Week Five

Courage and Tenacity

• Reward ourselves
• Building Resilience
• Dealing with Failure
• When is enough enough?
• Case Study Three (likely - depends on class)

Week Six

Show Time

• Grief
• Frustration
• Applying Case Study Skills to your situation
• Identifying your best tools
• Making it Work for you both

Relationship Matters

This week we are going to be delving into what relationship in your unique and specific context means. Many of you are taking this course because you are struggling with a disconnection between you and your animal partner. Simply discovering you aren’t alone in your feelings, some of which are likely pretty negative and have probably shocked you more than once, is validating and an important part of why FDSA decided to run the course. But there is so much more we can do to improve relationships. Engagement, management, relationship building, focus, drive, impulse control are all great courses to help you both. And yes, my expectation is this takes teamwork, you alone can’t “fix” a disconnection, nor can an animal. Interesting eh? The expectation is not that you should work in isolation but that you must work on both sides of the leash or lead line.

Those of you who have taken classes with me before know there are often links to readings (both in lectures and in threads). I get notes long after a course is closed thanking me for the links but don’t worry about reading them all each week.

This class will be no different and why not get right to it ... I laughed when this blog post popped up on a friend's feed – this course has been named since March or April 2016 at the latest

http://www.drjensdogblog.com/on-expectations-and-disappointments-love-the-one-youre-with/

I particularly appreciate the first hand story as I think many people expect to go a different direction than they go when they set out to get “that particular” puppy,

Your first homework.. if your introduction didn’t delve into all of this – or if you haven’t done your intro yet

Why did you choose this specific course? Which other courses of this type have you taken? What is the disconnection, if any, between you and your partner and how is it affecting you both?

Golds: Show us two short (no more than 2 min total) video clips - the good or best moment you can and a piece that illustrates why you are taking this course!

A special note to bronze ... the bronze who get the most from the courses actually do, and write out the answers to the assignments ...just the process of personalizing the answers is valid though if writing it out is too much - don't be afraid to do the work.