Dog Wisdom
Get a glimpse into how dogs make sense of the world in ways that go beyond what we teach them.
For dog pros ready to move beyond “how can I teach this to the dog?” and explore how dogs learn and what they already know
19TH SEPTEMBER • 6PM IST TO 9PM IST • RECORDING AVAILABLE
Price increases to $59/₹5500 from 16th September
If a dog can...
Navigate a city.
Assess safety and risk.
Adjust to roadworks that weren't there yesterday.
Raise puppies....without a human deliberately teaching each step -
Why do we keep talking about learning as though it happens only when the treats come out?
We've spent decades trying to understand how dogs learn.
And yet, our explanations keep circling back to the same place.
Reinforcement.
Associations.
The Four Quadrants.
But…
Have we mistaken one way of influencing behaviour for a theory of how dogs learn?
Because here’s the thing: Learning doesn't begin when we start teaching.
The question, then, isn't: "What reinforces this behaviour?"
It is: "What is this dog learning—and how might they be learning it?"
That question opens up an entirely different territory.
One where we can begin to examine learning as something far more expansive, complex and intelligent than behaviour changing because a consequence followed it.
That’s what we do inside Dog Wisdom masterclass: An inquiry into what dogs might be learning, how they might be learning it, and what our current frameworks may be missing.
19TH SEPTEMBER • 6PM IST TO 9PM IST • RECORDING AVAILABLE
Dog Wisdom
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For three hours, we'll step outside the familiar language of canine learning and into an exploratory inquiry into what learning might look like when we stop assuming the Four Quadrants have the final word.
We'll watch free-living dogs living complex, dynamic, unpredictable lives.
We'll observe, question, consider possibilities, build hypotheses and examine them.
We'll follow the evidence of what we're seeing rather than rushing to fit it into what we already know.
And we'll use what we see to ask a much bigger question about what dogs are capable of learning—and what happens when we take that capacity seriously.
This is NOT a masterclass where you'll be handed a new theory and told, "This is how dogs learn."
It's a space to investigate what we may have been missing.
And to begin asking a much bigger question:
What if dogs are capable of forms of learning that our current frameworks don't yet know how to explain?
Who this is for?
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You’re a force-free dog professional. You care about agency, choice, wellbeing and relationship—not just getting dogs to behave.
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You’re genuinely interested in understanding dogs, not just teaching them. You want to know how dogs experience, navigate and make sense of their worlds.
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You are a dog pro who uses rewards and reinforcement, but you have started noticing that rewards, reinforcement and the behaviourism frameworks don’t explain everything you see in dogs. You’ve had cases where reinforcement doesn’t produce the outcome you expected, or where a behaviour changes without you being convinced that the dog’s emotional experience has changed with it.
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You’re curious about free-living dogs. You see them not as dogs who are missing training, but as dogs whose lives can teach us something about what dogs are capable of.
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You’re tired of the endless cycle of "here's another way to teach your dog." Another webinar. Another course. Another technique. Another protocol. You want somewhere to actually think about dogs.
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You’re comfortable being curious, questioning assumptions and building hypotheses rather than being handed another framework.
What becomes possible after this masterclass?
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You will look beyond reinforcement and association and explore how social learning, genetic wisdom, observational learning, attunement influence learning
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You will see the evidence that dogs are constantly learning even when humans aren't training them or teaching them something
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You’ll experience intellectual excitement as you practice building and testing different possibilities for what a dog might be learning and how—without needing to decide which one is the “right” answer
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You will experience what happens when you look at free-living dogs as individuals whose lives can raise new questions about canine learning.
What to expect in the masterclass:
We'll work with videos and stories of free-living dogs navigating physical environments, social situations and the human-made world. We'll engage with questions like:
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What might the dog already know about this person, place, object, relationship or situation?
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What might they be figuring out, discovering, remembering, adapting to or learning through the situation?
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Did this knowledge come through exploration, watching others, navigating the environment, repeated experience, social relationships—or something else?
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Could the same behaviour be explained by something other than the first explanation that comes to mind?
We'll consider different possibilities for how dogs acquire knowledge and examine those possibilities against what we can actually observe.
Towards the end, we'll step back from the individual dogs and ask what this way of looking at learning might open up.
If dogs are learning through their relationships, environments, experiences and everyday lives in ways that we don't always account for, what does that mean for how we understand dogs?
And perhaps more importantly:
What does it ask of us as the humans who shape so much of their world?
NEXT DOORWAY
The Dog Observation Practice
For some of you, Dog Wisdom will be the moment something in you says:
there is more here. More to notice. More to question. More to learn from the dogs themselves. And if that happens, The Dog Observation Practice is the next doorway.
It is my 3-month program for dog people who want to move beyond simply identifying behaviours and interpreting what they mean—and learn to observe dogs in ways that open up more questions, more possibilities, and more ways of knowing them.
You can take what you experience in Dog Wisdom and keep exploring on your own. Or you can spend three months building The Dog Observation Practice with other thoughtful, curious dog people who want to slow down, look closely, question their assumptions, and learn to let dogs themselves guide the inquiry.
Because observation is not just a skill to diagnose and categorize dogs and their behaviours. It can become a way of learning about dogs from dogs.
The Dog Observation Practice is where you get to build it.
But first, come experience Dog Wisdom.
About Me
I'm a Certified Canine Behaviour Consultant and Applied Ethologist, but this masterclass isn't coming from a belief that I've figured out how dogs learn.
Quite the opposite.
I've spent years working with dogs, studying canine behaviour, and observing dogs closely—and some of the most interesting questions I've encountered have come from the moments that don't fit neatly into the explanations I already had.
My work has increasingly taken me beyond asking “What behaviour is this?” or “How do we change it?” and towards questions like:
What is this dog learning?
What do they already know?
How did they come to know it?
What are they learning simply by living their lives?
A significant part of that learning has come from watching free-living dogs navigate the world around them—their relationships, environments, social lives, problems and everyday decisions. I've watched dogs acquire skills and knowledge without someone deliberately setting up a training plan to teach them.
And rather than treating those moments as interesting exceptions, I've learned to let them raise bigger questions about dogs themselves.
That is the perspective I'm bringing into Dog Wisdom.It is a willingness to look closely at dogs, take their intelligence seriously, question the frameworks we have inherited, and follow the questions that emerge.
That's the enquiry I want to invite you into.
Final Thoughts
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We have spent so much time teaching dogs to learn from us.
What if we spent more time learning to recognise what dogs already know?
And if dogs are capable of learning from living, relating, exploring, navigating and experiencing the world—
what happens when we stop assuming that our job is to teach them everything they need to know?
That's where the enquiry of Dog Wisdom begins.
FAQ
Is this a dog-training masterclass? No. This isn't about learning another technique, protocol or way to teach a dog a behaviour. It's an inquiry into canine learning—and what we might notice when we look beyond human-directed teaching.
Do I need to be a force-free trainer? The masterclass is designed primarily for dog professionals who already work from a force-free or dog-centred approach and are curious about expanding how they think about learning. You don't need to agree with everything we explore. You do need to be willing to question your existing assumptions. This is not for anyone who uses any form of aversives as part of their training tools. That is completely okay. Free-living dogs will be our primary source of learning, and I will bring documented field observations into the container. But you do not need direct access to free-living dogs to take part. We will also learn from companion dogs in safe, observable settings, because the questions we are exploring can be seen across contexts.
Is this about free-living dogs or companion dogs? Both. Free-living dogs give us an opportunity to observe dogs acquiring knowledge and navigating complex lives without humans deliberately teaching every step. But one of the questions we'll sit with is what this might mean for how we think about companion dogs.
Will I leave knowing exactly how a dog learns? This is not a new protocol/framework or prescriptive session. You'll leave having experienced a different way of asking about canine learning. And hopefully with some questions that follow you into your next observation of a dog.
Is this suitable if I'm not a dog professional? The masterclass is designed with dog professionals in mind. If you're a deeply curious dog person who already spends a lot of time observing dogs and questioning conventional explanations, you may still find it valuable.
What time are the calls? The calls are scheduled at 6:00 PM IST and will be for a duration of 3 hours. You can check your time zone here: worldtimebuddy.com
Will the sessions be recorded? The session will be recorded and available to you.
