When a lovely new follower asked me for a webinar on frustration, it made me realise that I’d already done so much on frustration that I wasn’t sure there actually was anything else to say on the topic.

It also made me realise that I hadn’t got a catalogue of all the Lighten Up materials in one place.

There’s so much Lighten Up content on frustration, both free and paid.

That makes it a little challenging to know how to navigate it. It makes it difficult to know where to start and where to end.

To that end, I’ve produced this route map as a guide. It is filled with links to all the relevant materials and an indication of what they are. That includes reading, videos and courses. It also includes an indication if it is free content or if it is paid stuff.

Where to start

These introductory webinars, ebooks and articles are all free. They are a useful place to start and will give you an overview of the basics.

1. An introductory article

This free blog post is a 5-minute read. It is a simple introduction to a single aspect of frustration as it relates to barking and lunging on lead.

2. An introductory webinar

This free 25-minute webinar focuses on frustration out on walks. You might think of this as lead or barrier frustration, or also barking and lunging on lead around other dogs.

3. The Lighten Up Frustration Assessment & Audit 2024

This free 19-page e-book is downloadable here. There’s more detailed information about frustration in the first 14 pages. It covers frustration more broadly in all the ways it may affect our dogs’ lives.

Going deeper

These free materials are more extensive. They are designed to support you in going deeper into frustration if you have recognised that your dog or a dog you work with is struggling with frustration. They also provide a bridge into materials that explore frustration and its solutions in more depth.

4. 30 Solutions for Frustration

This free 1-hour webinar gives you a broad overview of frustration and how it impacts the lives of our dogs. It also includes 30 ways we can reduce frustration in our dogs’ lives and build up tolerance over life’s small frustrations.

5. Effective Desensitisation for Frustrated Dogs

This free 10-minute read explores the challenges of desensitisation with frustrated dogs.

6. Building Frustration Tolerance in Frustrated Dogs

This free 15-minute read from Woof Like To Meet (a partner site for Lighten Up Dog Training) gives you eight strategies to help build up your dog’s ability to cope with unavoidable frustrations. They can also help your dog learn that small delays and variations are not the end of the world.

7. Using free work to build up frustration tolerance

This free 15-minute read helps you use free work and environmental enrichment with your frustrated dog. While there are enormous benefits to enrichment activities, trying to use them with frustrated dogs can lead to the dog learning shortcuts (like shaking a snuffle mat instead of using their nose), frustration & guarding over food items or chews, destructive behaviour or redirected aggression. If we make enrichment too challenging, our frustrated dogs may simply give up. This article explores some ways to avoid that occurring, since enrichment activities & training are excellent ways to build up frustration tolerance.

8. The Body Language of Frustration

This free 1-hour webinar gives you an insight into the ways in which we might notice frustration in dogs.

Deeper understanding

These courses offer insights, understanding and solutions in more depth. While they do not offer the complete picture as the Lighten Up Frustration Masterclass, they provide either a more comprehensive overview suitable for novice dog trainers or behaviour consultants as well as for guardians who want to know a bit more, or practical workshops for invested guardians and dog trainers.

9. Understanding Canine Frustration

This five-hour webinar builds on the free webinars offered on YouTube. It is a popular overview that covers everything frustration-related in some depth. It covers neuroscience, biology, body language, ethology, development and solutions over the self-study webinar materials.

10. From Mayhem to Maestro for Frustrated Greeters

This six-week supported learning course runs in April of each year. It focuses on a very specific problem: dogs who bark and lunge in frustration, particularly at unfamiliar dogs or humans on walks. We may think of this sometimes as ‘barrier’ frustration or ‘lead’ frustration. It is a practical course for dog trainers and for guardians whose dogs bark and lunge on lead.

There is an active Facebook group for daily support during this time and you get lifetime access to materials. What this means in practicality is that you will be able to access materials as long as the hosting site or similar ones are available. Should Lighten Up cease trading, the video materials will be made entirely downloadable for a period of time. There are weekly live Q&A sessions in the group and hands-on practical support as work through this step-by-step approach that has all the theory it needs but goes heavy on the practical skills.

While the course may not currently be running when you click the link, you can sign up to the waitlist here.

Comprehensive depth

The course that provides complete coverage and depth is the Frustration Masterclass. This builds on steps 9 and 10 if you have already done them. You may also find the Mayhem to Maestro provides a useful addition to the Masterclass in that it goes into much more practical depth on a specific aspect of frustration.

11. The Frustration Masterclass

This is the behemoth… the leviathan… the must-do for dog trainers, behaviour bods and dog nerds alike. The Frustration Masterclass runs annually from September each year through to December, although you can start and finish in your own time.

There is a dedicated Facebook group for participants and weekly Live sessions for the 12 weeks that the course is live.

Like the Mayhem to Maestro course, you do not have to study along if it’s inconvenient, but I know most people who complete it take advantage of the pace-setting of that 12-week block. There are over 40 hours of content arranged over six modules, plus 36 hours of live sessions that you can access alongside a workbook for each module.

Materials are available indefinitely and I very much appreciate that many people stick around. As the course goes live each September, once you’ve done it, you also get the benefit of updates and future live sessions, as well as indefinite access to everything you paid for in the first place.

Feedback

One trainer said, “My expectations were definitely outshone by the sheer amount of information I learned in the course. I couldn’t even imagine that there was so much interesting stuff about frustration beforehand.”

If you are hesitating, they continued: “Just do it, you’ll regret it otherwise. Also, it’s worth much more.”

A very lovely guardian who completed the course says, “Don’t hesitate. Every dog you work with will thank you.”

Over 200 people have undertaken the course and I am delighted it remains a unique and cutting-edge course. No stone is left unturned, and every single year, you reap the benefit of additional materials for extra development on top. It truly covers everything in the most depth, from the frustrations of former street dogs through to the frustrations in training for specific sports.

If the course is not currently running, you can join the waitlist for the next run here.

Additional materials from here

There will be additional practical courses like the Mayhem to Maestro course over the coming years. If you feel like you would benefit or enjoy a course, article, webinar or Youtube broadcast that is not included in the materials already, please let me know!