19/08/2022
Hi everyone. I've been quiet lately and there is a good reason for this. As many of you will know, I use Free Will Teaching in my work, and for some time now, together with Kathie Gregory, the founder of FWT, and another lady Bethany Bell, we have been busy developing Free Will Teaching to reach far and wide, and benefit everyone who wants to learn about it.
We have started a Facebook group for those who want to learn more about FWT, offering free and paid for resources including informative posts, webinars, and one to one sessions.
We are a friendly group and have nearly 2k members already. We have a webinar coming up soon, focused on reactivity. Do join us at “There is more to teaching dogs than training dogs” to find out more.
Kathie will be launching The Academy of Free Will Teaching in the autumn. As an education provider, The Academy has a range of courses for those with an interest in animal behaviour and those seeking professional accreditation, including support and/or mentoring appropriate to each course.
In line with this we are rebranding our websites, so over the next few months there will be changes to how this page and my website will look.
With the increased popularity of zoom in recent times, many have found that this resource is key to revolutionising how they work. This is also true for us, we now work with many overseas clients, some as far as Australia and their successes confirm that working with clients and their dogs in person is not necessary.
I really hope you will join us in this venture, and join our group, “There is more to teaching dogs than training dogs” to keep up to date on what we are doing.
What Is Free Will Teaching?
Free Will Teaching Offers a Perspective that will change your approach to teaching animals and takes today’s canine knowledge into the future.
Free Will Teaching is how we live our life with our dogs. It’s guiding principle is to give dogs the free will to live the life they want to live. However, free will is not just leaving your dog to do what he wants, when he wants, that would result in chaos! Free will is achieved when we understand ourselves and the world around us properly, so we are able to behave, interact, and make decisions that are healthy and mindful to us and to those around us. Spoken language is our main way of communicating with our dog, backed up by our body language. Teaching spoken language gives us the ability to communicate, via conversations, the complexity of subjects that raise dogs to the potential of their species and themselves as an individual, and gives them the ability to understand more than can be conveyed with single words or hand signals. In turn, we must understand our dog’s spoken language and body language so they are an equal participant in the relationship.
However, there is more to FWT than just conversational language. If we are to teach effectively and develop our relationship with our dog, we need to understand him completely. Underlying our conversations is knowledge of each individual dog; Genetics (breed, instincts, drives, traits). Neurological and physical development in relation to age. Physical and emotional health. Historical (past experiences). Personality. All these things make up who he is, and along with environment, nutrition, and medication, informs our understanding of him and is the foundation of our conversations, because what we say, how we say it, how we ask questions, and how we share knowledge all influences and shapes the mind, and all need to be tailored for who the dog is at that moment, which makes how we use language very important.
