Frequently Asked Questions

Is your dog brilliant at home but shuts down at the show? Does he bark and lunge at people or dogs? Is she afraid of the teeter? Does he seem generally stressed out?

All of these common behaviors can be addressed through understanding basic rehabilitation principles! For a pet dog, dealing with behavior challenges is a good idea. For a competition dog, it is non-negotiable. Our goal is to make your dog enthusiastic about performance (and life!) so he can enjoy himself!

The Play Way is Amy’s method of helping shy and fearful dogs overcome these issues to live a happier, less-stressed life. Rather than focusing on food, as many do when working with these dogs, Amy has established a more nuanced rehabilitation process that revolves around play.

She believes play is a much more reliable method of judging a dog’s true behavioral thresholds, while being equally effective at changing the dog’s conditioned emotional response to particular stimuli.

Online classes are composed of lectures, videos, and images created by Amy for that specific course. Students can join each class as either a Gold, Silver, or Bronze student. Each level includes a different amount of participation.

All levels have access to all lectures, videos, and images.

Gold members receive their own forum, where they post videos and receive direct instructor feedback. Other students can follow along by watching videos submitted by Gold students and reading the instructor’s responses. Both Gold and Silver members can also participate in the student forums and ask questions.

Bronze members receive read-only access (you can read everything, but can’t comment).

Online classes are a great way to work on rehabilitating fearful, shy, and reactive dogs because they allow you to work at the dog’s pace and expose the dog to new situations as they are ready for each new stage of learning.

All of Amy’s group classes are currently online classes hosted by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy.

Amy presents seminars on a variety of positive training and performance sport topics with a focus on helping fearful, shy, and reactive dogs. She presents a limited number of seminars per year.

To see upcoming events, see the events page.

If you’d like to book Amy for an event, please contact her here.

Yes. Amy offers private lessons on a limited basis in the Oakland, California area.

If you don’t find the answer to your question here, please feel free to email Amy directly via her contact page.