Online Freestyle Dog Dance
Create Your (First?) Freestyle Routine
This virtual workshop is designed to take you from shyly watching Crufts performances and lamely doodling in your living room to confidently performing full trick routines with your best friend.
Class Details
Dates and price:
6 Week Online Program
Next Round: 07/26 - 09/06/2026
8 Student Maximum
All Levels Welcome, from Beginner to Professional
$230 for Our Special Beta Testing Round
This course includes:
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1 Full Routine Trainer Video Review per Week (2-6 minute videos)
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Unlimited Short Trick Video Reviews (~30 second videos)
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Weekly Homework Assignments
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3 Group Calls (Introduction, Peer Review, and Graduation)
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Group Chat to Share Ideas
Class Description
You and your dog know a handful of tricks (or maybe several buckets full), and you are ready for a challenge. Maybe your dog has been frustrated by longer routines, or maybe you can’t stop hunching over like Gollum when you try to dance. Or maybe, you just want guidance and the push to express your creativity with your four-legged best friend, and to be supported by others on the same journey.
Once you can dance your way through your skills, connecting with your dog for “normal” training feels different. You have an increased understanding of your body language cues. You know how to play together, and you know how to have a dialogue with your dog.
The goal of this program is that you and your dog have written and can perform a 2-6 minute routine by the end of 6 weeks. This routine can have heavy human choreography such as what you see in freestyle dance, or you can have a more “circus style” routine with less dancing for the human. We will explore different themes and mood, discuss song choices, and workshop tricks together. We will also workshop fading lures, isolating verbal cues, using props, using rewards in a routine smoothly, fading off of rewards, general concepts of chaining and duration, and general “good training” practices. Your instructor Cori and their dog Cupid will also be writing a new dog dance routine along with you as you go through the program.
FAQ
What tricks are good for freestyle/dog dance?
Almost any trick can be incorporated into a routine! You can work with "easy" tricks such as shake/give paw, sit, down, follow me, heel, spin, and weave. You can also make a routine with more advanced tricks such as orbit, reverse weaves, walk backwards, go out/send out and other distance & prop-based tricks.
Do I have to be a good dancer or performer to make a good routine?
No, you are absolutely allowed to create a routine where your dog does the stylistic heavy-lifting, and the handler's job can be to smile at the audience and do "ta da!" arms.
There will be assignments still encouraging you to explore more creative movement with your own body while your dog does tricks.
Do you accept payment plans?
Yes, you can pay 1/2 at sign up and 1/2 on the day the class starts.
What if I live in Chicago and would rather take classes with you in person?
You should! Check out my group classes here.
Class History
Part 1: Once Upon a Time, Covid Forced Us Online
Once upon a time (in 2019), I had been training dogs for a few years and was forced to explore the world of virtual dog training classes during the quarantine period of the pandemic. A few clients of mine became dedicated trick class regulars, and we met weekly to practice trick training on Zoom. This class kept going for a whole year! Eventually, their dogs knew all the tricks my dogs knew. I was learning new tricks just to teach my regulars these tricks.
Then, one day, I logged on and proposed, "Why don't we try to make a dance?" And boom! Dance with Your Dog was born.
Here you can watch a VINTAGE video of these early stages of my dog dance career. I was teaching the class with Mars, because the dog you probably associate most with my dance videos, Cupid, was still just a baby puppy!
Part 2: A Bitework Dog Becomes a Dancer
Cupid was training for IGP when a chronic shoulder injury put him on many periods of activity rest. He has had many, many months of not being able to play fetch, run for extended periods of time, or really do any challenging exercises.
Desperate to entertain and mentally enrichment my young Dutch Shepherd, I began to lean more into trick training, oftentimes during my lunch break while working at a training kennel. Combining tricks into a routine turned into a fun challenge for us, and I would try to make a new routine every day.
Doggy Dance meshes nicely with my history of circus (including circus on horseback) and physical theater. Though it is by no means the most popular class to teach, I continue to teach it because it is my favorite group class to run.