Art-of-Living for dogs and handlers,

Recording of the webinar: Art-of-Living for dogs and handlers
The art-of-living is a concept that can be assigned to the positive psychology. It is based on strategies to lead a happy and fulfilled life. The concept includes 17 different components which can be trained. Jessy and Sam have adapted the concept from humans to dogs. They have developed a holistic and science-based programme including several exercises to improve happiness and well-being for dogs AND handlers. For the online workshop, the two will tell their story of how they have brought the art-of-living concept into the dog world and we will train several strategies together. For example, you can discover how you can influence yourself as well as your dog being calm in difficult situations. You will find out about your own strengths and virtues and how to use them in daily life. You will improve your sleep and train your positive attitude towards life. And there will be many more topics we will work on together!! ♥

Jessy Lang (Germany)

My name is Jessica Lang. I am mainly working as a positive psychologist, supporting people to become happy and to improve their well-being. Already during my studies, my phd research was focusing on positive psychology. The specific topic was called ‘Art-of-Living’. Art-of-Living describes a self-determined and reflective way of leading one’s own life with the aim to fulfil own needs and to become happy. During my research I pointed out that art-of-living can be trained due to specific training strategies.

Besides work, I adore spending time together with my dogs and doing some fun stuff with them. We started diving in some dog sports and learned more and more about how to improve our connection and our happiness together. Some years ago, I founded my own dogschool (trickandtreat.info) for also making other teams happy.

Connecting my two passions - research and my love for the dogs – grew into my biggest dream, which I finally started to work on. This all started after being invited by the amazing Claudia Moser to the 1. TAGteach Conference in Switzerland. And finally, with the support of my friend Sam Turner I was able to realize it. We have adapted the concept of the art-of-living for humans to dogs and developed a training programme, including individual exercises for dogs and handlers leading to a happy and fulfilled life for both. Bringing the art-of-living into the dog world let me find my real passion and I can’t wait to share it with you guys all over the world!!! Because we all deserve to be happy!!! <3

Sam Turner (Netherlands)

My name is Sam Turner. My specialty and passion over the years has become proprioception training which is all about body awareness and fitness for dogs. My own dogs have been the driving force and have steered me in this direction for different reasons. Wanting to explore all kinds of trick training but also wanting to explore different dog sports brought home to me that there is more to this than just doing the tricks/exercises. Providing my dogs with the best mental and physical basis so they would be able to learn and perform with confidence and ease was my aim and also keeping them healthy and fit throughout their lives. 

Dogs love to be active and interact with us humans but I discovered that we do not always give them the best start or basis for this when we only focus on results and performance. Changing my perspective I changed my way of living with my dogs and gradually shaped into looking at everything form a developmental point of view as well as looking at all the skills that our dogs needed to learn for different tasks we aim for. How do our dogs develop mentally? How do they develop physically? Together with my own dogs this changed how we lived together giving my dogs more and more say in how we approached what we were going to do. Making me look and listen more to their needs not just my wants. This also changed my way of teaching drastically and has shaped it into developing a better understanding and respect for this beautiful creature we share our lives with. 

My working life consists of training people with their dogs of every age though puppies and adolescents are the main focus. Focusing oin teaching understanding and life skills for both humans and dogs so they can enjoy their life together to the fullest.

Also I teach a trainers course for proprioception training. In this course I teach dog trainers about proprioception training and how to implement this in classes. The course teaches trainers to look at dogs' bodies closely and provide exercises that will improve flexibility, strength and confidence in the broadest sense always taking the individual dog into consideration. 

In all my teaching the dog is central as individual through all of the training. Looking not just at what we want them to learn and do but what they can and ware able to do at this time. Looking and listening to the dogs as we work with them. Through this specialisation I have had the opportunity to speak at seminars and conferences in different countries which is amazing to experience. I also teach teach at institutes that provide education for people that aim to become pet dog trainers. In these classes I talk about clicker training, developmental stages of dogs and how to teach classes. And together with an osteopath I have written a series of books (in Dutch) on keeping dogs physically and mentally balanced throughout their lives.