Registration:

$270 Early-Bird 3-Day

$145 SIngle Day (on a space-available basis)

Lunch is not included.

Friday 7th – Sunday 9th May 2010
Hyatt Fair Lakes
12777 Fair Lakes Circle, Fairfax VA 22033

This seminar has been approved for 18 CEUs

Friday (9:30am–5:00pm): Behavior, Activity & Reactivity Problems
Saturday (9:30am–5:00pm): Quantitatively & Qualitatively Raising the Bar in Dog Training
Sunday (9:30am–5:00pm): Games for Teaching Reliability, Precision & Pizzazz

Registration:
$270 Early-Bird 3-Day (on or before 7th April 2010)
$360 Late-Bird 3-Day (after 7th April 2010)
$145 Single Day (on a space-available basis)
Lunch is not included.

Accommodation
We have reserved a limited block of guest rooms for seminar registrants on a first-come/first-served basis. Each room is $80.00 +tax per night for single or double occupancy. The number of rooms is limited and these special rates are only available until 15th April 2010. To book your room, call 703-818-1234 (or 1-800-233-1234) and ask for the Dog Seminar room block.


Friday: Behavior, Activity & Reactivity Problems
Common puppy behavior problems, such as housesoiling, destructive chewing and excessive barking as well as separation anxiety increase in severity and frequency during adolescence and adulthood. Activity increases to hyperactive levels, and jumping-up and pulling-on-leash become major problems. As adolescent dogs de-socialize, they become more fearful (and maybe aggressive) and especially leash-reactive to other dogs.

Behavior Problems

When common and predictable puppy behavior problems persist or reemerge in adolescence or adulthood, it is time to go back to the drawing board: total management (both long- and short-term confinement), feeding only by hand or stuffed in chewtoys, autoshaping, putting all problem behaviors on cue, representatively rewarding dog for acceptable and appropriate expression of otherwise problematic behaviors, and confidence-building exercises.

Activity Problems

Effective resolution requires specialized training techniques to achieve long-term reliability — all-or-none reward training exercises — extremely simple techniques that make training easy, extremely effective, surprisingly calm, and above all, rewarding. Exercises focus on building confidence, calming, settling-down, and regaining attention. Specific exercises are required to troubleshoot each of the four basic adolescent/adult noise-activity problems — hyperactivity, barking, jumping-up and pulling on-leash. By alternating a problem behavior with the specific desired behavior — Jazz-up/Settle Down, Woof/Shush, Hug/Sit and Pull/Walk — it is possible to re-channel the dogs’ exuberance into equally enthusiastic obedience. Alternating the two behaviors allows the once-problem behavior to be used as a reward for the desired response and the dog soon learns to enjoy sitting, settling, shushing and walking by your side. 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.

Leash Reactivity

Adolescent dogs begin to bark and strain on leash and eyeball 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. Training adult dogs 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. Leash-reactive dogs require oodles of classical conditioning, progressive desensitization, all-or-none reward training techniques and above all, representative feedback regarding the appropriateness/inappropriateness of their behavior. These exercises may be accomplished in a class setting, or when walking the dog.


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. 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 1. they do not fully understand the meaning of instructions and 2. they have not been adequately motivated. The goal of training is to produce reliable, distal, verbal control without the reliance on any training tools. Knowing what your dog understands 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. Basically, if you keep score, your dog’s performance will improve. Quantify for Quality!

Reliability and precision depend very much on comprehension and motivation. Using a Test-Train-Test format, trainers must repeatedly and objectively assess the degree to which dogs progressively increase their understanding of verbal instructions and handsignals. Once dogs have an acceptable Response Reliability, e.g., above 90%, training primarily comprises motivating dogs to want to comply and eventually enforcing compliance (without physical force, fear or pain). However, even though 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.

Precise performance depends on setting realistic and progressive criteria with ongoing differential reinforcement. Using the Natural Motivation Method, trainers learn to phase out all training rewards as early as possible and replace them with more powerful Life Rewards until eventually, no external rewards are necessary because in a sense, the Response becomes its own Reward. The dog becomes self-motivated and internally rewarded. Additionally, trainers need to learn how to put motivation and pizzazz on cue.


Sunday (9:30am–5:00pm): Games for Teaching Reliability, Precision & Pizzazz
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 (quantitatively and qualitatively) 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.

This seminar will describe all sorts of home, class and event games to quantify and fine-tune some basic obedience skills, including attention, position changes, stays, following, heeling, and precision work.