Dr. Ian Dunbar — Austin
Friday 20th – Sunday 22nd November 2009

$270 Early-Bird 3-Day Registration

Click here to see all event options

This seminar has been approved for 18 CEUs

Clarion Inn & Suites Conference Center
2200 IH–35 South, Austin TX 78704

Friday (9:30am-5:00pm): Dominance (?!?), Fighting, Biting, Compliance & Punishment
Saturday (9:30am-5:00pm): Quantitatively & Qualitatively Raising the Bar in Dog Training
Sunday (9:30am-5:00pm): Teaching Puppy Classes, Adult Classes & Playing Games

Registration:
$270 Early-Bird 3-Day (on or before October 7th, 2009)
$360 Late-Bird 3-Day (after October 7th, 2009)
$145 Single Day (on a space-available basis)
Lunch is not included

Accommodation
We have reserved a limited block of guest rooms at the Clarion Inn & Suites Conference Center for seminar registrants on a first-come/first-served basis. Each room is $89.00 +tax per night for single or double occupancy. The number of rooms is limited and these special rates are only available until 5th November 2009. To book your room, call 512 444 0561and ask for the Dog Seminar room block.


Friday: Dominance (?!?), Fighting, Biting, Compliance & Punishment

“Dominance” is most certainly the most misunderstood topic in dog behavior and training. A misunderstanding of wolf behavior has been applied to dogs, and then a misunderstanding of dog-dog behavior has been cavalierly extrapolated to dog-human interactions and training. Misunderstood notions of supposed physical dominance-hierarchies are often used as rationale (an excuse) for physical and painful punishment when training dogs and especially when attempting to resolve biting and fighting problems.

These simplistic views of dog behavior are an insult to dogs. Domestic dogs living together develop extremely complex and sophisticated social structures and dogs living alone require impeccable social savvy to meet, greet and get along with every unfamiliar dog that they meet. (Human social skills pale in comparison.) More disturbing though, the unwarranted application of physical dominance in training has had an extreme negative impact on the quality of life of dogs and their owners.

The mere use of the term “dominance” biases the training arena, encouraging an adversarial relationship between people and dogs and prompting people to attempt to physically dominate their dogs. Physical domination causes resentment, mistrust and fear, and ultimately creates yet more problems. The dominance perspective is just so wrong. And the mere suggestion of physically dominating dogs is downright dangerous in pet dog training in which a good third of our clients are children.

Most so-called “dominant” behaviors, such as jumping-up, pulling on-leash, housesoiling, humping, eating first and going through doors first, may be quickly and easily resolved by mind-boggingly simple training techniques, such as all-or-none reward training. Certainly some dogs, especially males, have pushy personalities with people — always testing the rules, however, instigating more rules and calmly insisting on improved compliance usually puts the dog back on track. Similarly, some dogs tend to “bully” others and require immediate, continuous and representative feedback regarding their appropriate and inappropriate play styles. Even so, most categories of aggression, especially including inter-male, dominant, territorial, maternal, and idiosyncratic aggression, etc., appear to be fear-based, as diagnosed by successful treatment primarily by classical conditioning and progressive desensitization.

Topics include:
True Top Dogs — Cool and Confident — They seldom growl or fight; they don’t need to
Alpha Dogs ? Dominant Dogs?— Insecure, growly, bellicose, middle-ranking males
Hierarchies — Real or hypothetical? Linear or nonlinear? Uses and abuses
Rank-Reduction Programs — What’s important and What’s not
Doggy Social Structure Unplugged — Linear male hierarchies; Less-linear female hierarchies; Female amendments to male hierarchical law; Puppy-Adult relationships; Puppy license to misbehave; Developmental nolo contendre; Special friendships and animosities; Triadic relationships; Policing dogs; Pack harmony.
When the “Treatment” is the Cause — Slow recalls; No recalls; Houdini stays; Lackluster heeling; Owner-Absent problems; Fighting; and Biting. (Rather than increasing compliance, the (often) inappropriate use of punishment exacerbates existing problems and causes additional problems.)
Fighting — caused by marginal socialization, lack of representative feedback for appropriate social behavior, yet highlighting occasional fearful and antisocial behavior by punishing the dog for growling or fighting.
Biting — caused by lack of socialization and handling and by exacerbating early warnings of fearfulness and aggression by punishing the dog for growling, lunging and biting, thus giving the dog an additional reason to growl, lunge and bite.
Better ways of producing friendly, respectful, loving and happily compliant dogs.



Saturday: Quantitatively & Qualitatively Raising the Bar in Dog Training

Competition dog training comprises specialized dogs, experienced handlers and a finite curriculum with examination questions known well beforehand. Pet dog training comprises an unknown, infinite curriculum, largely inexperienced handlers and dogs of all types. The divergence of pet dog training from competition training has caused many changes. By and large, training techniques have become much more user-friendly and dog-friendly (with oodles of classical conditioning, food and toy lures and rewards, and lots of fun and games), but… criteria, speed of acquisition, precision and ultimate response-reliability have all taken a nose-dive. What happened to emergency sits and downs, rock-solid stays, off-leash control, snazzy heeling and calm on –leash walking? With the absence of periodic quantification the success of pet dog training has gone downhill. And when training doesn’t work well, dog owners either blame the dog or seek help elsewhere.

So many owners respond to noncompliance by punishing the dog even though it can be proved that most dogs fail to comply simply because they have not been trained sufficiently; the dogs do not fully understand the meaning of instructions and they usually have not been motivated to respond. The goal of training is to produce reliable, distal, verbal control without the reliance on any training tools. Knowing what your dog understands by your commands is important so that you do not become frustrated (and blame the dog) for poor performance. Instead, poor responses from the dog should prompt owners to re-evaluate their training techniques. Quantification is proof-positive of your dog’s performance-reliability and level of command-comprehension, (or lack thereof). Quantification allows you to set realistic, personal long-term training goals. Quantification offers irrefutable proof when you reach these goals (and deserve to congratulate yourself). Basically, if you keep score, your dog’s performance will improve. Quantify for Quality!

However, even once dogs have solid comprehensive of our training commands does not mean that they will necessarily do what we want. On the contrary, reliable and precise performance is all about motivating dogs to want to do what we want them to do. Once the dog is on our team, then only very occasionally is it necessary to enforce compliance, without of course, the use of force.

Topics include:
Theoretical Education vs. Practical Experience — Knowing what’s common and what’s not; Preventing predictable behavior and training problems; Critically evaluating the severity of existing problems; Offering realistic prognoses; Establishing realistic criteria; Offering a number of best possible solutions; and Training the dog to criterion.
Phasing out Food (and Toy) Lures and Reward
Phasing out all Management and Training Tools
Difference between Lures, Rewards, Motivators, Distractions and Bribes
Natural Motivation — Life rewards; Putting problem behaviors on cue, so that potential distractions become huge usable rewards; Phasing out all external rewards; The Self-Motivated, Internally-Reinforced Dog.
Enforcing without Force — calm, gentle insistence to produce happy, willing and confident compliance.
Quantification for Quality: The Sit Test; Test-Train-Test, Training=Testing; Command:Response Ratios; Percentage Performance Reliability; Command: Correction Ratios; Progressive and Realistic Criteria Setting; Time-and-Trails to Criterion; Differential Reinforcement.
Some Results from the SIRIUS Research Study — speed and effectiveness of training
So when Plan A Fails, What about Plan B and Plan C?



Sunday: Teaching Puppy Classes, Adult Classes & Playing Games

Puppy Training Classes
In 1982 Dr Dunbar developed and taught the world’s very first off-leash puppy socialization and training classes intended for the whole family (especially children) with a syllabus encompassing all aspects of behavior modification and temperament training as well as teaching basic off-leash manners. In order to make the SIRIUS® Puppy Training video though, the Director changed the class format to facilitate filming — owners were seated in chairs with their puppies on-leash to provide an attractive backdrop while Dr. Dunbar worked with one owner and puppy at a time. The SIRIUS® video was a “how to train your puppy” video for pet owners, it was not intended as a “how to teach puppy classes” video for dog trainers. Unfortunately, many trainers religiously copied the “filming-format” and are still teaching classes in that fashion today. Of course, puppy classes should not be taught that way. (*Recently, we filmed SIRIUS® Puppy Training Redux — so that dog trainers may see how to teach off-leash puppy socialization and training classes.)

Classes should be taught entirely off-leash to maximize dog-dog play (learning bite inhibition) and socialization with people, especially strangers, men and children.

Frequent short training interludes should be integrated into play to enable owners to learn how to calm down, control and regain attention at times when puppies are distracted and so that play may be repeatedly employed as an effective reward for training. Food lures should be phased out after half a dozen repetitions and food rewards phased out as soon as possible. However, food treats should still be used for classical conditioning to teach dogs to thoroughly enjoy the company of people and other dogs. Any signs of fearfulness or “bullying” must be resolved during the very first session, otherwise the problems will quickly become worse as each week goes by. Classes should include puppies of all sizes and all play-styles.

Adult Dog Training Classes:
Teaching adult dog classes can be frustrating and overwhelming, but this is not the fault of the dogs, or their owners, rather it is the fault of trying to use inappropriate training techniques. Adolescent dogs begin to bark and strain on leash and eyeball the other dogs. The dogs blow off food and toy lures, they blow off any attempts at training and they blow off their owners, which, of course, is why most people have come to class.

Adolescent dogs require oodles of classical conditioning and all-or-none reward training techniques in order to make training simple, effective, surprisingly calm, and above all, rewarding. Exercises focus on building confidence, calming, settling-down, and regaining attention. During attention-training exercises, most dogs learn to walk calmly on leash and to sit stay as a bonus. All-or-none reward training techniques are simply magical.
Once owners have learned to control their dogs’ energy and exuberance and the dog has acquired impulse control and offers healthy attention, lure/reward training techniques may be used to teach the basic skills needed for a mannerly pet dog — sit, down, stand, stay, walking on-leash and polite greetings.

Tricks & Games:
Learning tricks and playing games rapidly accelerates the speed of learning. Not only do tricks and games motivate both dogs and owners to give their very best performances but also, tricks and games motivate owners to practice. For some owners, heeling and sit-stay homework is not very exciting, but many will stay up to the wee hours to practice for Musical Chairs or Doggy Dancing.

All tricks/games are designed to improve the quality of the relationship between dogs and their people and each individual game, (including musical chairs, doggy-dashes, retrieval races, woof relays and of course, doggy dancing), is specifically designed to fine-tune essential ingredients of your dog’s training repertoire. For example, with tricks as simple as Biscuit Balance and Playing Possum, you end up with fantastic Sit-Stays and Down-Stays.

In addition, playing games is an enjoyable and non-threatening way to objectively quantify performance. For example, there will be only one fastest recall and only one longest sit stay. However, regardless of comparative rank of performance (compared with other competitors), the most worthwhile reason to play games is to establish a personal best, setting personal goals, and above all, striving to progressively better your best from week to week.

Games may be used to fine-tune basic obedience skills, including attention, position changes, stays, following, heeling, and precision work.