Follow Maestro from 8 weeks to 1 year

That's 10 months of content!


This program is formerly known as Pandemic Performance Puppy

Follow along with Laurren and Maestro's agility foundations journey! Train alongside them as they work through weekly games and fundamental exercises that are essential to becoming a successful agility athlete. Weekly videos cover key primary behaviors, which build upon layers of learning for a concrete understanding of criteria. Whether you are just starting out with a brand new puppy or have an older dog who has holes in their fundamental understanding, this program is safe & appropriate for canines of all ages!

Instructor

Laurren Zimmerman

Laurren is a Certified Canine Athlete Specialist, multi-time dog agility national finalist, and winner across multiple organizations of the sport. She is dedicated to helping handlers and their dogs reach untapped levels of potential through fitness training. By optimizing health and wellness of both handlers and their canine athletes, transforming teams for the sport of dog agility is the ultimate professional pursuit. She is the owner of Oakley Canine Athletics, based out of Lexington, South Carolina.

What am I getting?

  • Over 170 unedited training videos (approximately 3 per week)

  • Written explanations and critiques of each session

  • Ability to ask unlimited questions about each session

Pricing options

12 months of access

Sample Lesson

See video below!

Maestro got to travel to Level Up Dog Sports in Virginia this past weekend:

  • This was his first big travel trip to accompany me to a place where I was presenting a seminar.
  • On Thursday evening, we were very lucky to drop-in to resident instructor Sarah Crane's foundational agility class - she provided us with several exercises in a public environment with other students/dogs around.
  • For participating in his first ever class, Maestro was a ROCKSTAR! I was so impressed with how focused he was and was not concerned with the other people or other dogs in the group. He was happy, focused, & demonstrated some amazing skills that we have been working on in a new, public environment.
  • She had us start with some shadow handling - just moving and reinforcing the puppy for staying with us and simulating some handling maneuvers such as post-turns and front crosses. 
  • The recalls to each side went very well, so we progressed into blind crosses on the flat - it was super great for him to see these and see how easily he switched leads and still drove into position.
  • Maestro has only been on my inflatable fitness equipment at home a handful of times, so it was great to familiarize him with some new equipment in a different atmosphere and see the understanding transfer over. I was just rewarding for any interaction with the equipment. He did great hoping on and off the equipment and was not concerned with the other dogs out on the floor - all focused on me - so awesome!
  • Outside circle work around 4 jump stations was next on the agenda, since we have been working on this previously, he demonstrated it beautifully! 
  • Inside circle work - we have not done this with as much space and around multiple objects at this point - so, this I would say was the most challenging of the exercises from the class. I made sure to walk slow and reward him heavily around the turns, so that he understood to stay in reinforcement zone. We end on a progression to him trotting with my arm back - he does really great staying on the inside and not cutting my line! This shows me the understanding IS there and we can start to progress him with this exercise!
  • We then demonstrate out on the floor, with all sorts of distractions, that building value for myself and reinforcement zone is heavily paying off! He is really starting to understand the ending position and is more comfortable driving in and sitting closer to my side, so I am thrilled with this.
  • The last exercise of the night, we got to shape a tire jump - I was SO impressed with this set-up. I give all the credit to Sarah for coming up with a puppy-safe way to introduce them to the tire at an early age and desensitize them to moving through the hoop. With me sitting on the floor and having it between my legs, I have full control over the tire ring and so there is no way of it falling over or hurting him as he learns to move through it. Super cool! 
  • Overall, Maestro literally blew me away - I was thrilled with his understanding of all we have been working on and how he was able to transfer that to a public environment. New building, new dogs, new people, new equipment - he did not even bat an eye! We will definitely do this again if presented with the opportunity. 


Watch Intro Video

Drop In Class at Level Up Dog Sports

Maestro at 21 weeks old

TESTIMONIALS

Maggie

I have been working through the Pandemic Performance Puppy program with my border collie, Riot, since I got him at 8 weeks old. I have lots of future performance goals with Riot and hope to eventually compete in agility, disc, and dock diving, but safety is my #1 priority. I wanted a puppy training program that would help guide us through age appropriate, safe exercises that weren’t hard on my growing pup’s body. I found the PERFECT program with Laurren’s Pandemic Performance Puppy course. I have seen too many trainers and puppy agility courses that push puppies to sequencing far too soon and introduce drills and obstacles that strain a young dog’s body and can cause injuries. I am SO thankful I found Laurren for Riot’s foundations. Her program uses simple, *safe* and super fun exercises to teach the all-important foundations for agility - and other dog sports. Now that Riot is 10 months old, I’m already beginning to see his brilliant Pandemic Puppy foundations come together into real agility skills, even though we have only ever sequenced a couple of times and never drill obstacles. Laurren helps you through everything you will need in a superstar performance dog - building focus and allll the value for me, amazing recalls, off leash hiking skills, toy drive and impulse control, solid startline stays, jump bump gridwork, fitness foundations, and tons of fun groundwork exercises that will make training all the hard and fancy agility moves so easy once he is old enough! I'm so excited to continue following Laurren and Maestro as our puppies grow up into agility dogs! I highly recommend this program (and Laurren) - not just to all the future sports puppies out there, but also to dogs of any age looking to learn/improve upon their foundation skills, better their teamwork, and train some incredible performance dogs!!

Martha

The Pandemic Performance Puppy Program has been by far the best online training course I have ever taken!!! Prior to this program, there was nothing out there that really broke down training sports and agility foundations in such a way that made sense to both the handler and the dog while having the dog’s age and safety as the top priority. I have been working on parts of the program with my 6 year old agility partner to close holes that we had in our foundations and have incorporated the gridwork and fitness with my 12 year old and 4 year old. I am beyond excited to go through the entire program with my puppy who joins the family next week (end of July)!!!

Deanne

I want to give a shout out to Lauren Zimmerman for the fabulous Pandemic Performance Puppy class. I have been watching the videos religiously and have benefited so much from watching Lauren, an expert in the field, train her beautiful puppy Maestro. I am nowhere near the level that Lauren, and most likely the others, in this session are. Greta is my first border collie, and because of her I am venturing into this new world of agility—at 64 years old! But being able to attend these sessions gives me a sense of how to train my girl. Lauren writes a lengthy description with each video. She outlines, in detail, what is happening in the video AND the rationale behind the training. I am grateful to have this opportunity to learn from Lauren.

Victoria

Since starting the skills in this program I have seen some amazing improvement with my Aussie, Zelda. So I decided to train Navi from the start and getting to follow along with Lauren and Maestro helped break down the skills and see it from a different perspective. I feel much more connected to Navi on the field and she has a complete understand of how to independently perform her part of the game without me being there to guide her. Working the lines is easy and natural to us as a team.