I have started my first six weeks of courses (3 courses) for Ember, and I'm getting Kairo again from today until the end of February. I'm thinking of putting Kairo through these courses as well, just to give her something to do throughout the day.

Wasn't sure if any of you guys have tried these courses. They are fun and addicting and incredibly enlightening!

We are taking:
Empowerement (building a will to ask for things and complete a thought)
Bogeymen (addressing fears)
Body Awareness Through Targeting (waking up awareness of all body parts, spacial boundaries, etc - more confidence and trust building).

I'm a curmudgeon - that's been well documented here - and I haven't had any interaction with Fenzi.

I just took a look at the Agility Courses - of which there are 26 - at $65, $130 or $260 a pop, I'm thinking this could become *extremely* expensive quickly.  

To recap what you get for the money:
The $65 level allows you access to the videos and read access to the forum for the class ...
For $130 you can add in the ability to write questions and get answers (presumably) on the forum ...
For $260 you are expected to upload videos for critique by the trainer over the 6 weeks of the course.

I don't know the interaction between the trainee and the trainer - but for $130+ I'd hope it's significant. My impression that this is a trainer giving you primarily taped "advice" so, to my mind, the cost tends to be high.

A quick look for Dog Trainers in Crystal Beach show a few, not so many as I'd have expected but I'd think that your money would be better spent with a live one-on-one trainer.

Now, all those curmudgeonly comments to the side, since you said that you've enrolled in one 6 week course, I'd appreciate your comments as you go through the course.

Like I said, this is my first round of classes with them, so let me see if I can answer all your questions/concerns without muddying the waters Husky Style.

I am in 3 classes.
Bronze - Targeting for Body Awareness ($65)
Bronze - Empowerment ($65)
Silver - Bogeyman ($130)
Total: $280

So technically, if you stay bronze (most people do), you get more bang for your buck. And boy, I do mean BANG.

Once you are registered and paid for a course, there is a closed Alumni group you can be added to on Facebook. Tons of discussion, questions, course advising, talk in general. Extremely active and supportive group!

On top of that, most classes have Facebook "Lurker" groups (closed and requiring screenshots of your enrollment to gain access). In these groups, the instructor is NOT present, so it is peer review and "safe" for Bronze interaction. This means as a Bronze I can post my videos and ask questions. The only rule here is that you can't ask questions that getting the answer to would "degrade" silver or gold status - IE, I can't abuse the Lurker group to get silver/gold style answers (or get them to post your questions on the class forum for answers from the instructor). But if you post videos, people from the class are amazing, supportive, and quick to peer-review - and for me, that has simply been enough when coupled with the actual lessons.

Most importantly, once you are added to these groups, you are never removed. Some people posting on my videos / questions / concerns took the course a year ago or more and have even more time to refine their skills than my classmates, so I really trust the information I glean from these FB groups alone.

Now for the lessons on the actual Fenzi site.

Bronze = all material + read discussion/homework forums + Facebook

Silver = all material + access to instructor for "generic" questions/discussion + read homework forums + Facebook

Gold = all material + access to instructor for "generic" questions/discussion + being able to submit homework for correction/1-on-1 instruction + Facebook

The only "limit" on Gold-Instructor interaction is that a video must be submitted to demonstrate what you are talking about and you cannot submit another video until the instructor has responded to the last video poste (to keep the threads clean and easy to read).

Once you are enrolled in a class, you have access to that classes' material for a year, and every year following that you take a course. So if I took just 1 course a year, I would retain all courses material from every class taken for every year until I miss a year.

They highly encourage you to save out course material and discussion threads as any level. Youtube is used for videos and requires a public channel, so the videos are most likely going to be there years down the road.

So once you are enrolled in a course at the lowest level, you have access to that material to go back to it as many times as needed.

And finally, my analysis on material. This is the material I have covered in 2.5 weeks from 3 classes:




And there are still 3-4 weeks left.

Some of the coures are "Front loaded" meaning it's all information right up front, and then several weeks of straight application. Others are more evenly spread out. I got one class from each of that spectrum and one right in the middle LOL.

The information, at least for my dog, for the courses I chose, has been phenomenal. Ember has changed so much in just 2 weeks, and I'm already able to understand much more about her. On the sport side, I've been seeing people's post on how to fix broken sport cues or how to even start in a sport. Professional to complete noobs like me alike. It's a large community and one of the best ones I've ever been a part of!

I mean to add the following numbers thought:

I am taking 3 course in 3 different subjects, some with very novice information and some expecting some idea of what you are doing in a training session.

Final cost: (total) $280 for 6 weeks

Normal training sessions here in town are 3-5 times a week, and average about $50 for an hour (if I go with the behaviorist I hired for Ember, she is $50 an hour for me, 1 hour a week IF that often). For reference, she is the only Force Free trainer in town. All other trainers are domination theory, e-collar/shock collar, board to train, etc. Ember couldn't even finish the Petsmart Puppy Class because of sharp tones and leash corrections used - she had a meltdown 4 weeks in and completely shut down on me. Had to start all over. so again, for my scenario, I'm using my Behaviorist as the only reference point.

It takes me about 2 hours to read through all the course material for all three classes (2 hours a week).
I train with Ember on each course every day, for a total of about 1 hour training (7 hours a week).

So I'm looking at "training" work to be about 9 hours a week for 6 weeks. That's 45 training hours.

45 training hours for $280 = $6.22 per hour to learn how to train my dog myself, and all the behaviors behind said training session.

I think that's a fair trade, especially if I am willing to put in the work and WANT to learn all the ins and outs.

Christina, thanks for all that. As I said, I'm more than a bit "Scottish" (I want to know what I'm getting before I pay for it) and I didn't get that off their web site.

The only place they lose me is that I don't / won't have a FaceBook account - so I'd be lurking on their forum(s).

(( er ... my apologies to any Scots in the crowd ))

Hey let me know what you think. I have been considering doing one of those classes I did one at bronze awhile ago.

I have been pretty busy recently and haven't gotten much "training" done with my dogs.

By that I mean more training to work on doing performance events. I know dogs are always learning from us so we are alway doing what I think of as "don't be an asshole" training.