ACE Free Work: Helping Dogs Feel Safe, Seen, and Understood
A calm, sensory-based experience that supports your dog’s wellbeing and education, created by Sarah Fisher as part of Animal Centred Education (ACE).
ACE Free Work: Helping Dogs Feel Safe, Seen, and Understood
A calm, sensory-based experience that supports your dog’s wellbeing and education, created by Sarah Fisher as part of Animal Centred Education (ACE).
How ACE Free Work Supports Your Dog
ACE Free Work is simple to set up and endlessly adaptable.
It invites dogs to explore a variety of textures, scents, and objects in a safe and unhurried way. As they move, we observe their behaviour, choices, posture, breathing, and movement, the subtle details that reveal how they feel both physically and emotionally.
This form of education helps us recognise where a dog might need additional support, highlighting areas of sensitivity, tension, or uncertainty. It also offers valuable opportunities for dogs to decompress, restore balance, and process their environment at their own pace.
You don’t need much space or special equipment to begin, just curiosity and a calm, safe environment for your dog to explore.
Why ACE Free Work Matters
At the heart of ACE Free Work is a simple idea: when we slow down and observe, we begin to understand how each dog experiences the world, and that understanding changes how we support and connect with them.
UNDERSTANDING THE UNIQUE DOG IN FRONT OF YOU
Every dog has their own unique way of experiencing and moving through the world around them. Some rush forward, eager and confident; others hesitate, needing time and reassurance.
ACE Free Work helps us see those differences not as problems to fix, but as valuable information about how a dog truly feels.
UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOUR THROUGH OBSERVATION
Behaviour is communication, shaped by how a dog feels in body and environment. When we pause to observe, we notice the quiet signals that show what a dog needs, a softening of posture, slower breath, or brief pause before re-engaging.
These moments create opportunities for learning, connection, and trust.
SUPPORTING CALM, SENSORY EXPLORATION & LEARNING
ACE Free Work helps reduce stress. By supporting calm exploration and giving dogs genuine choice, we’re helping their bodies and nervous systems return to a more balanced state.
Over time, this can lead to improved confidence, better recovery after arousal, and a deeper sense of safety in everyday life.
AN INVITATION TO STAY CURIOUS AND KEEP LEARNING
For dogs who find the world overwhelming, Free Work can become a safe starting point, a space to rebuild trust, confidence, and curiosity.
For guardians, it’s an invitation to stay curious, observe, and ask questions about what their dog is showing them, while responding with patience and understanding.
Awareness, Understanding, and Support
“ACE techniques improve awareness of an animal’s needs, and highlight areas where an animal may require additional support.” Sarah Fisher
How ACE Free Work Can Help
ACE Free Work can be adapted for almost every dog and situation. Its versatility means it can support dogs across all ages, backgrounds, and experiences, from confident explorers to those finding the world a little more challenging.
Some of the many ways it can help include:
- Gathering observations and insights about posture, movement, and behaviour.
- Supporting dogs who find the outside world challenging or struggle in new situations.
- Providing a calm, rewarding activity that helps build confidence and emotional stability.
- Creating a natural reset after a stressful or arousing experience.
- Nurturing connection and understanding across relationships, between dogs, people, and other animals.
- Building a foundation for future learning and life skills, such as settle, recall, drop and loose lead walking.
- Offering a safe way to introduce new or uncertain experiences.
- Providing an alternative to daily walks for dogs who need time away from busy environments.
- Building safety and confidence for dogs who find travel or new environments challenging.
- Supporting dogs through every stage of life, from puppies to seniors.
ACE Free Work continues to evolve and reveal new layers of understanding. Each session offers something different, a new observation, a subtle change, or a shared moment of learning.
How ACE Free Work Became Part of My Life
As an ACE Advanced Tutor and Certified Canine Behaviourist, I have explored ACE Free Work for many years, and it continues to surprise and inspire me. Each session reveals something new about the dog in front of me and the quiet ways understanding unfolds through observation.
Free Work has been an invaluable part of our lives. It’s helped Harry navigate noise sensitivity, build confidence, move more freely when he’s been uncomfortable or in pain, and support his physiotherapy. It’s also provided a rewarding space for learning new life skills and for finding calm when he becomes over-excited around visitors.
ACE Free Work teaches patience, awareness, and empathy. It reminds me to slow down, observe without expectation, and truly listen to what our dogs are showing us.
Start Your ACE Free Work Adventure
Whether you are new to ACE or ready to explore it in more depth, there’s a place to begin that feels right for you and your dog. Each course and workshop offers new ways to deepen your understanding, exploring the layers that reveal how your dog experiences and responds to the world around them.
Every Free Work session adds another layer of understanding. Over time, these small insights build into something much greater, a shared language, a sense of trust, and a deeper awareness of what truly supports your dog’s wellbeing.
Introduction to ACE Free Work
ACEing Trust & Connection
True connection begins with understanding. This course explores how observations and shared experiences can build trust and emotional safety between you and your dog.
You will discover ways to strengthen your relationship through awareness, presence, and communication, creating a deeper, more meaningful partnership grounded in understanding rather than instruction.
ACEing Scent
1
ACE Free Work Workshops
Introduction to ACE Free Work Workshop
This 3-week workshop introduces you and your dog to the foundations of ACE Free Work.
You will learn how to create calm, sensory-based experiences that help your dog explore, relax, and communicate naturally, and gain the confidence to begin your own Free Work adventure.
Introduction to ACE for Reactivity Workshop
This 4-week workshop explores how ACE Free Work, integrated techniques, and simple games can support reactive or sensitive dogs.
You will discover how calm exploration and choice-based experiences help reduce stress, build confidence, and improve your dog’s ability to cope in everyday life.
ACEing Essentials
Workshop
In this 4-week workshop, you will learn how ACE Free Work can become the foundation for teaching essential life skills.
We will explore how rewarding education, clear communication, and emotional safety create an environment where skills develop naturally and confidence grows.
ACEing Car Travel
Workshop
This 4-week workshop focuses on helping dogs feel safe, comfortable, and relaxed during car journeys.
Using ACE Free Work principles, you will learn how to reduce anxiety around travel, create positive associations, and make journeys calmer and more enjoyable.
ACE Free Work Mentoring for Professionals
For trainers, behaviourists, and professionals who want to integrate ACE Free Work into their practice, I offer mentoring designed to deepen understanding, strengthen observation, and build confidence in applying ACE principles.
Together, we explore how to create meaningful, individualised Free Work plans that meet each dog’s physical, emotional, and sensory needs. Mentoring provides a collaborative space to share observations, reflect on what you see, and discuss how to support both dogs and guardians through every stage of the process.
Each session focuses on real cases and questions, offering space to discuss observations, explore behaviour in context, and find new ways to support the dogs and guardians you work with.
1.
Integrate ACE Free Work into complex behaviour cases, including reactivity, anxiety, fear, body sensitivity, and frustration, to understand emotional motivations, reduce stress, and support lasting behavioural change.
2.
Build learning through safety and curiosity, using Free Work as the foundation for rewarding education and life skills such as recall, loose lead walking, settle, and drop, creating calm engagement and genuine understanding.
3.
Strengthen your observation skills, recognising how posture, movement, and small changes reflect emotional state, and learning how to record and share meaningful observations with other professionals.
4.
Design and adapt setups for diverse needs, from single-dog households to multi-dog or multi-species homes, supporting calm introductions, natural exploration, and learning at each individual’s pace.
5.
Create behaviour and training plans that truly work, kind, effective, and achievable strategies that help guardians build confidence, support learning, and sustain progress in real-life situations.
6.
Reignite curiosity and confidence in your work, discover how ACE Free Work can simplify complexity, reduce overwhelm, and bring clarity, creativity, and joy back into your professional practice.
Whether you’re new to ACE Free Work or looking to deepen your understanding of how it supports emotional regulation, learning, and behaviour, mentoring sessions are collaborative, reflective, and designed around your practice.
If you would like to explore how mentoring could support your work, email me directly at sonia@confidentcaninetraining.co.uk I’ll be happy to talk through what you need and find the best way to get started.
