Spots Available: 10
Description: Marin Humane is honored to present
Lori Stevens
Shape Up! A Canine Fitness and Body Awareness Workshop
Saturday-Sunday, February 16-17, 2019
9:30am-5pm

Fitness is important for your dog’s health, and doing fitness exercises with your dog is fun and enriching for both of you. Canine fitness exercises increase muscle strength and improve performance, confidence, flexibility, focus, body awareness, and balance.

Developing fitness-related observation skills are an important part of this workshop. Whether you have a working spot or you are an auditor you will learn a lot about observing canine fitness behaviors. Lori will go into detail about proper alignment and what to change in order to change it. She'll also demonstrate ways of getting various fitness behaviors. Lori will coach one team at a time. As the teams develop foundation behaviors, participants and observers will work on sharpening their own observation skills.

A primary goal is to help dogs experience joy while doing canine fitness exercises properly! You will see how to set up the environment for fitness exercises as well as learn about safety and effectiveness. Topics and activities will include reinforcement strategy, position resets, getting proper alignment, and how to empower your dog during fitness training. You will also learn how your body position influences your dog’s movement and alignment. You’ll learn what equipment to start with and how to progress the exercises so that your dog stays safe and in proper alignment, while getting the benefits of the next level of difficulty.

This is an introductory session: no prior canine fitness experience is needed, but you should know how to shape and prompt behaviors. Your dog should be fluent in a nose-to-hand target when moving from A to B to target your hand. It will also be useful if your dog can target with two front paws, e.g. step up to a platform. Be prepared to reinforce your dog often!

Lori Stevens (CPBC, CPDT-KA, CCFT, SAMP) is an animal behavior consultant, a professional dog trainer, a canine fitness trainer, an animal massage practitioner, and a senior Tellington TTouch® Training practitioner. She continually studies the interactions among animal behavior, movement, learning, fitness, and health. She uses intimidation-free, scientific, and innovative methods, in an educational environment, to improve the health, behavior, performance, and fitness of animals.

Lori's most recent of three DVDs by Tawzer Dog Videos is co-presented with Kathy Sdao and called 'The Gift of a Gray Muzzle: Active Care for Senior Dogs' --it focuses on improving the lives of our aging dogs. Lori gives workshops worldwide and has a private practice in Seattle, WA. She teaches online classes at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy on fitness, aging dogs, and massage/bodywork. Lori is the creator of the Balance Harness®.

Lori gets joy from helping others help their dogs whether for competition or daily life. She enjoys hiking, training, and playing with Cassie, her Australian Shepherd.

$380 for a working spot (10 max), $190 for an audit spot (30 max). Working dogs should be non-reactive to humans and other dogs, and must be comfortable being quietly crated in a seminar environment. If you have any questions, please contact Kristin at kherrera@marinhumane.org.

Class Trainer(s)
Price: $380.00
Location: Pavilion Marin Humane 171 Bel Marin Keys Blvd Novato, CA 94949

Event Dates:

• Saturday, February 16, 2019
• Sunday, February 17, 2019

Time: 9:30 AM
Duration: 7.5hr(s)

Notes: working spot