Course Lab – Episode 121
Turning Practical Dog Training into Interactive Online Learning (Kirsten Wojcik)
Abe Crystal: Make sure that you’re not ignoring potential communities in your space that could be really valuable. In her example, like, it probably took her 10 minutes to reach out to this Facebook group that she knew about and ask them if it would be okay to share a coupon for her course. And got a bunch of sales that way. So that’s a very high return on your time.
Ari Iny: Hello and welcome to Course Lab, the show that teaches creators like you how to make better online courses. I’m Ari Iny, the director of growth at Mirasee, and I’m here with my co host Abe Crystal, the co founder of Ruzuku.
Abe: Hey there, Ari.
Ari: In each episode of Course Lab, we showcase a course and creator who is doing something really interesting, either with the architecture of their course, the business model behind it, or both. Today we’re joined by Kirsten Wojcik, a dog behavior expert with nearly three decades in the field. She works with dogs and their owners, helping them bridge the gap between human expectations and canine instincts. Her Canine Behavior Mentorship course blends online and hands on learning to give both professionals and dog lovers the tools they need to build better relationships with their dogs. She also co hosts the Dog Chats Podcast. Kirsten, welcome to Coarselab.
Kirsten Wojcik: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Ari: So the way that I always kick off these interviews is by asking the guests to just give us the 30,000 foot view of yourself, how you came to be doing what you’re doing, and how you came to the world of online courses.
Kirsten: Okay, great. I started as a classroom teacher when I was in my early 20s. And then during the summer, I worked for a dog boarding facility and local training place. So most of my adult life I was both a classroom teacher and a dog trainer. And then in 2017, I came upon some online classes and discovered behavior education, which is very different than dog training. And it opened this whole new world for me. It connected me with people around the world. In fact, one of them was Alexis Davison, who was using Ruzuku. And that was when I first discovered your platform. And I’ve always had the dream to blend those two worlds, to be both a teacher and a dog behavior consultant. And I really have been able to do that with online learning. And it’s a wonderful way for me to share my passion for teaching and my passion for canine behavior education.
Ari: So just so that we have kind of more context, could you explain the difference between kind of the behavior side versus the training side?
Kirsten: Yeah, great, Great question. So training is more like sit down, stay, it’s obedience. It’s like being a PE teacher. You shout out things to the dog and the dog does it. That’s the hope. Right. And it’s more about putting a bandaid on the problem. For instance, if a dog is barking, a lot of trainers will do something to just stop the bark, where somebody in behavior will say, why is the dog barking? And how can we look at that overall issue so we’re not just putting a band aid on that symptom? So I always give the analogy that a dog trainer is more like a PE teacher and a dog behavior consultant is more like that child psychologist, trying to figure out why the dog is having the feelings they’re having and how to meet their needs.
Ari: Awesome. And so in your online courses and your business, so you do both in the online courses and kind of directly with people, is that right?
Kirsten: Yeah, correct. So in my, my business, I’m working one on one with a family and their dog, trying to solve their cases. And then my online courses are teaching dog enthusiasts and other dog professionals how to use this model of asking why the dog is doing what they’re doing instead of just trying to get them to perform a behavior.
Ari: Okay, got it. And so could you tell us a little bit more about your course and kind of how you work with people to gain that skill?
Kirsten: Yeah. Good. So the course is three parts and I actually just revamped it again. I, I keep, I don’t know if you’ve heard that book, Think Again. But I keep changing it every year and it’s getting better and better. But the first part of the course is really explaining to people the essence of dog behavior. So why are they doing what they’re doing from a learning standpoint, a genetic standpoint, an environmental standpoint, and the self, which is their developmental stage or sexual status and things like that. So we do a deep dive into that.
And then we also look at how dogs perceive smells and sights and the whole sensory perception, essentially how dogs think and their cognitive abilities. So once people have a grasp of that, that’s the first section of the course, then they can choose to go on to the next section, which is actually solving case studies. So I present a dog and I say, you know, this client came to me, here’s dog Fido. And Fido is biting the neighbor’s children and pulling on the leash and ate a chicken. And we have this whole format that we can use online to work together to solve that case. So I was doing more hands on component there, but I’ve now that I’ve got This international audience, I’ve revamped it so that it’s all happening over Zoom. And it feels much more exciting because I’m. I can be more inclusive.
And then the final phase, if they want to keep going, then they can go on and choose to solve their own case study. So this is where it’s really exciting. It’s a practicum of they get their own client in a lot of cases, I help them find a client or a friend, they don’t have to get money for it. And then they are solved their case and we’re working as a group weekly sharing where they’re at and sharing videos. And I have a lot of like matrixes on how to keep progress reports. And then at the end they earn a certificate in dog behavior.
Ari: That’s a really interesting model to me of it’s essentially three mini courses that are all part of this larger course.
Kirsten: Correct.
Ari: So are you presenting it as one course with three parts or are you presenting it as three separate courses?
Kirsten: Right now, three separate courses, but you have to start at phase one to go to phase two. What I found is a lot of people sign up for that first course, but they can’t all go on to do the second course and the third course because some of the people are just dog enthusiasts. They don’t have any desire to do actual behavior consultations. You have to, we all begin at the top and then it narrows down into more of a practicum approach.
Ari: Interesting. And so essentially you’re catering to multiple different audiences, but with this structure they can just weed themselves out essentially. So the people who are enthusiasts, they go through the first and then if they want to, I suppose they could do the second and third. But I guess most don’t.
Kirsten: Most don’t, no. So the people who go all the way through are inevitably dog trainers or dog walkers who are choosing to kind of move over to the next level.
Ari: Interesting. And then do you do anything beyond that? Like after the certification, do you support them further?
Kirsten: Yeah, so I’m a mentor for life, I say. And even if they just do the first course, we have monthly live meetups. So for out of area people that’s not always possible. But we do a lot of community service. So for instance, we’re doing a mobile adoption coming up. And so even if they’re not in the area, they’re still helping us with the marketing and the write up and trying to get some local dogs new homes. Sometimes we are doing community service in terms of education and we came up with a little dog body language handout. And we went to a dog park in San Francisco and we just hung out and we pretended like we were just there, you know, incidentally. But we were actually educating people about inappropriate dog behavior and trying to teach them when dogs need help.
Ari: Awesome. And so you mentioned also in the second part that you used to do more of a hands on component. And here you’re also, you know, as this part of mentorship. There’s some hands on. So with it being an online course and you, you know, you were saying you have now a bit more of an international audience. Can you tell us a little bit more about what elements are still in person and to what extent you feel like that’s important for what you’re doing?
Kirsten: Yeah. So the monthly live meetups are all in person and once you graduate from that first course, so it just keeps adding on. So that group is building bigger and bigger. The reason that I had to stop doing the hands on was because of insurance actually. I got a new insurance broker who realized what I was doing and said they wouldn’t cover me, taking people in just in case there’s a dog bite case. So I’ve had to be more selective. But I do some Zooms and if it’s okay with the client, I can share that Zoom recording with my classes. And they get to really see that discussion as it’s happening and see the dog acting in that first person, you know. And I do a lot of videoing during my consults and then I share the video out. So it’s forced me to learn some new technology, which is good, but it’s been a learning curve.
Ari: And so it sounds like because of this you’ve also, like you said you had, you have one person who is in Italy who’s been going through your course courses. Have you expanded your marketing as well? Or is your marketing mostly local? And it’s just word of mouth.
Kirsten: Now that I’ve just revamped the program so that’s all online. I’m starting to rethink my marketing because it was mostly local. It was the first course I had people from all over. And then phase two was really a local audience, which I’ve kind of drained also. There’s only so many dog professionals in my area, so I’m excited to be able to reach out and do some new marketing just to get a broader audience.
Ari: Abe, any questions that are coming up for you?
Abe: Well, just if you could share like what have been your experiences and lessons learned from, I mean, teaching what most people would think of as a very much in person and tactile topic. What have you learned from teaching that online? And maybe, you know, do you have things to share with other course traders who are looking to do something similar?
Kirsten: Yeah. Well, it’s amazing how successful it has been having video to share with my students. And then they can look back on that in a sense. A lot of them said they like that better than they were so overwhelmed at that live one on one consult, you know, they’re taking notes, they’re not even really absorbing. But now that I am giving them actual video footage, they own that because once they have my course, they can keep it. So the videos throughout the course and then I’m getting them to feel really comfortable submitting their own video. And we always say, your technical skills get so much better when you see yourself on camera. Right.
You know, the first few times I shot a video of myself, it was disturbing how sloppy I was. So I think that it’s a whole other way to help people develop their dog handling skills by videoing themselves and then posting that and sharing it. And it’s a great way for people to be able to watch each other’s because again, in the moment when I’ve had a couple workshops, people are so nervous, they’re so worried about what they’re doing, they can’t learn from other people. But now we have this whole great discussion group where you can look at other people’s videos for ideas and as a resource.
Abe: Any other aspects of the course or how you engage, you know, with students that’s been really effective for you?
Kirsten: I love your community boards because I had used, I had taken courses with our modules and they’re. It’s just so easy in that moment for someone to start a discussion and post a video link or say, hey, what do you guys think the dog is doing in this moment? Or even if it’s a photo, it’s very user friendly. And I have, I have students who are in their 20s and students are in their 70s and they somehow all manage to figure out your platform, which has been wonderful and you know, it make it very easy. And I think it’s also very easy to go back and find the videos that people have posted because that’s my complaint about some other platforms like you’re scrolling through all that text. And then also because all of my Xoom recordings are listed under meetings, if they miss a class, it’s very easy to go back and find the class that’s been really useful.
Ari: So one thing I’m curious about is kind of the flip side of it. Videos have been working very well for all the different reasons that you mentioned. Is there anything that you feel didn’t translate as well as you would have hoped to online? Is that part of the revamping that you’re doing or anything like that?
Kirsten: No. In fact, one of the things that’s so much better is because I specialize in aggression, I probably should have started the aggressive behaviors. And for me to juggle a student with a dog that could potentially bite was really challenging. And then you also have the emotional needs of that client in the moment who’s looking at me like, why did you bring in this newbie who doesn’t know what they’re doing and just reach to pet the dog? So if anything, pulling that element out and having it a hundred percent online has been this huge weight off of me. And I just feel like I’m going to be able to do a lot better teaching in the moment, where, because I’m not so concerned about somebody getting injured or misreading a dog, and yet, because I’m doing so much videoing, we’re able to play back and still use that as a learning moment and say, see what the dog did when I walked in here? This is what I should have done.
Abe: So I’ll stick into, like, sort of sports coaching where it’s video analysis is actually more powerful than what you could do. Live in the moment.
Kirsten: Yeah, because so much dog behavior, so subtle and quick. Right. You know. We’re not doing sit down, stay. We’re, you know, walking to a home with a dog that bites and reading that body language in the moment. So having that and even being able to slow down the video has been just a really excellent tool. And then something different I’m doing is I’m finishing phase one with my current group, and instead of a test, we play Zoom Jeopardy. It’s always a hit.
Ari: Tell us more.
Abe: Yeah, how does that work?
Kirsten: So there’s several different companies that host a Jeopardy Platform, but I took all of what was initially my test questions and I put them into Jeopardy format questions, and I broke the class into teams, and they each have a turn to say, you know, I’ll take genetics for $300 and take a stab at the question. And then the cool thing is, is afterwards, I. I download and send to them all of the questions and answers. So it becomes a learning tool for them. You know, it’s kind of the summation of the first course.
Ari: That sounds like a fun way to do it and to get people more engaged. So going back to something that you were talking about earlier with the mentor for life, so you were saying, you know, even with the first course, there are the meetups and all that, because I was starting to ask about the professionals who are looking to get even more support from you beyond these courses, whether that’s available. Is that part of the process that you’re working with people on?
Kirsten: Yeah. So if they actually graduate from the program, then I’m helping them individually with cases for the rest of our lives together. So I do have a lot of people reach out and say, you know, I have this particular dog, and it’s doing this, and I’ve tried this, this, and this. I’m struggling, and so I can Zoom in with them and their client, or sometimes they send me video and I just do a little analysis. So that. That’s been really helpful. I had that from, I don’t know if you know, Mike Chicashio, but he was my mentor. I was one of his original mentees in his online program, and so I kind of learned that from him. How just having that space where you could reach out with a very simple, you know, I won’t read their whole case study, but I’ll just read some notes and make a few suggestions and see if I can bring a different perspective.
Abe: Very cool.
Ari: Okay, Abe, any last questions?
Abe: Well, anything else you want to cover in terms of, like, marketing or getting clients? You know, you mentioned kind of like starting off as more of a local business, but, you know, just curious, what have you learned or what do you see as the opportunity is, you know, for reaching people now that you’ve kind of developed this online program and made it to be really effective?
Kirsten: So I recently reached out to a large Facebook group of ethologists and put it up there and gave a discount for the holidays and got a bunch of students, and I wasn’t expecting that. I have a business consultant who kept suggesting that, and I need to do more of that. I don’t do a lot of marketing, but I’m working on my social media page and going to reach out. In the dog professional world, there’s a lot of big organizations that host classes, and I can do a little freebie webinar, and then they’ll put that out there, and there’s probably a word for that that you guys know because I don’t know much marketing, but like a magnet. So that’s my next step. That’s in the plans.
Ari: So if people wanna learn more about what you’re doing, about your course, about the work that you do, where should they go?
Kirsten: So my professional website is kwhappydogs.com and it talks about the behavior consults. And there’s a link on there to my education platform class, which is Canine Behavior Education. Or you could just Google that landing page as well. Canine Behavior Education. And it talks about everything that we were just discussing today.
Ari: Kirsten, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your experiences with us.
Kirsten: Yeah, thank you. I’m a big proponent of Ruzuku.
Abe: Thanks. Spread the word in your Facebook groups.
Kirsten: I will. All right, thank you.
Danny Iny: Now stick around for my favorite part of the show, where Abe and Ari will pull out the best takeaways for you to apply to your course.
Abe: All right, Ari, it’s time for the debrief here. And I guess kind of a theme on Course Lab has been people who’ve taken formerly in person, or what you might think of as physically tangible topics and turned them into a successful online program. And so Kirsten is the next in the lineage of people who have built a business doing that. And it’s. Yeah, it’s cool. You might not think of dog training as something that would translate well online. You might think that, hey, you’ve gotta be there, like, looking at the dog and, you know, physically directing it around. But turns out that’s not the case.
Ari: Yeah. And I mean, I feel like it’s everything that she shared about using video and how there are actually huge benefits to it. So, yes, of course, in situations like she described where A, there can be a certain danger in being in the situation, I think that’s not going to apply to most course creators, But I think that something that can apply is being able to take the step back. So, for instance, if you teach sales skills and do mock calls often, it’ll be very hard for people to really take in what you’re sharing because they’re so in the moment. They’re so trying to pay attention to what’s going on in the call, but having that and thinking about, okay, is what I’m teaching something where examples and such, instead of doing them live, I should also be doing them as video and sharing those.
And often course creators are doing that, but highlighting the importance of reviewing the recordings because often People don’t. And so just thinking about how that can improve and increase people’s retention and to what extent you want to be pushing and supporting people and actually watching the recordings and using that and digging deeper and analyzing what they’re, what they’re seeing as opposed to when they’re live and maybe aren’t able to take everything in.
Abe: Yeah. And I mean, I think what, what Kirsten’s example really illustrates is the power of getting your course participants to use video. You know, what like you might call user generated or user contributed video effectively. I think again, the sort of analogy here of thinking about what a sports coach would do, right? Like a basketball coach is going to, they’re going to tape the whole game and they’re going to then meet with the player afterwards and say like, hey, look, you were out of position on this play, right? Or like, you know, this was not the right shot for you to take here. And you learn so much from that, like post event analysis. And that I think is still probably an untapped opportunity for a lot of courses. There aren’t a lot that I see that are asking people to submit video in a way that encourages reflection, encourages skill development.
I mean, I have seen some, I’ve seen, for example, an acting class that does that where people will submit videos of themselves, you know, performing a scene. Right. Which is very effective. So I definitely think that’s a strategy that more people should look at is what can you be asking your, your course participants to do with video? You know, on the marketing side, like the potential takeaway for people is to make sure that you’re not ignoring potential communities in your space that could be really valuable for you. Right. I mean, in her example, like, it probably took her 10 minutes to reach out to this Facebook group that she knew about and ask them if it would be okay to, to share a coupon for her course. And, you know, got a bunch of sales that way. So that’s a very high return on your time. So it’s definitely worth looking at what are the communities around my topic that I either know or that I can like discover or ask around and find out. And how could I use those communities to get the word out about what I’m doing?
Ari: Yeah, absolutely. And something else on the marketing side is if there’s an element of your course that actually could have a broader appeal. So the way that she’s essentially divided up her course for trainers into these three segments that she’s selling separately because that first segment has that much broader appeal and allows her to reach more and more people. So if there’s something similar for you where elements of your course could have that broader appeal, it might be interesting for you to examine that and take that out and make it available to more people.
Abe: Kristin Wojciek is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, the owner and operator of KW Happy Dogs Behavior Consulting. You can find out more about her at kwhappydogs.com. That’s kwappydogs.com.
Thank you for listening to Course Lab. I’m Abe Crystal, co founder and CEO of Ruzuku, here with my co host Ari Iny. Course Lab is part of the Mirasee FM Podcast Network, which also includes shows such as Neuroscience of Coaching and To Lead Is Human. And if you want to hear more from Course Lab, you can follow us on YouTube or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Of course, as always, if you enjoy the show, we do appreciate a starred review. It really does make a difference.
All right, Ari, who do we have coming onto the show next time?
Ari: Next time, James Marland will be joining us. James is the founder of Course Creation Studio, where he empowers educators, therapists and change makers to amplify their impact through online courses. So I’m sure we’re going to have a a great discussion about this topic all the time.
Abe: Yeah.