Full Day Topics Available

Let’s Get Focused!

This is the most popular topic that Deb teaches!  Everybody wants focus, but understanding how to nurture, develop, and maintain it is the hard part.  Let Deb show you how with her step by step training system.  We start with focus exercises to help us establish the first steps of a strong working relationship with our dogs, then we move to focus games to enhance the flow and connection in our training sessions.  Trainers will learn how simple changes can make a huge difference in their dog’s level of focus.  

Here’s a short video demonstrating how we encourage focus in the absence of food on us:

Cooperative Care

All animals in our care will need physical handling.  They require grooming and veterinary care on a regular basis.  These types of procedures can be stressful and unpleasant.  However, there is so much we can do to make things better.  Creating positive associations with necessary handling procedures can make them much more tolerable, and even enjoyable, for everyone involved.  Deb will help you establish a much more positive conditioned emotional response (+CER) for your dog to being handled in a variety of ways.  Basic body handling, techniques to encourage stillness and focus, and specific types of handling like ears and nails, will be covered.  

Here’s a short video introducing the concept of ‘playing doctor’

Performance Fundamentals

Where do you start to get a good foundation for positive reinforcement based training?  You start right here with Performance Fundamentals!  This topic is great for trainers new to +R training, for puppies and young dogs, and for dogs who would benefit from a fresh start to their training.  This is also a great topic for class instructors looking to incorporate more positive methods into their curriculum.  We cover the basic concepts that provide the foundation for all your future work, such as establishing a strong training relationship with your dog, helping your dog learn how to learn and teaching the most important basic behaviors.  We cover a LOT of ground with this presentation, which makes it a great overview.  

Here’s a video of some foundation work on the mat:

Half Day Topics Available

The sessions listed below are best as half day options. They can be combined to form a day full of training fun! I suggest a morning of shaping and an afternoon of tricks or retrieves. 

Shaping Up Your Training!

Shaping is such a valuable training technique, and so very misunderstood.  Shaping can be an elegant and effective way to develop behaviors.  Or it can be a train wreck with a confused dog and a frustrated trainer.  Learn how to set your sessions up for success and quick progress.  Help your dog learn to become operant, but also learn how to instill stimulus control when appropriate.  We will discuss and practice setting appropriate criteria and determine when it’s time to ask for ‘more’.  You will be amazed at how much fun and how efficient shaping can be!  

Here’s a shaping session with a puppy where he’s learning to navigate an unstable surface:

It’s All Tricks!

Really, it’s all tricks.  Anything we teach a dog is simply a trick.  We make absolutely no distinction between fun and serious training.  The approach should be exactly the same.  Tricks are more than just entertaining and silly behaviors.  Tricks are useful to help our dogs learn how to learn, learn to control and move their bodies in a variety of ways, and use their brains to figure out new training challenges.  Teaching tricks is also a great way to try out a variety of training techniques and see what works best for your team.  

Taking the trick of backing up and adding it to the stairs:

All Retrieves All the Time

The old myth says that you can’t teach a reliable retrieve using positive reinforcement.  That myth is totally and completely wrong!  Our goal is to teach our dogs to LOVE the retrieve so much that they never let an opportunity pass them by.   Our method relies on a shaped, rather than a play, retrieve to build this skill.  We have a variety of tips and techniques to help you get your dog well on the way to a happy and reliable retrieve.  

Here’s a video of troubleshooting to get a hold and delivery to hand:

additional information for organizers

One Day Workshops

These workshops are offered to those within reasonably close driving distance from NE Ohio.  The workshop will be one day and run from 9 am to 4 pm with an hour lunch at noon. Workshops can have up to 10 working teams and 20 auditors. The topic can be any of those listed above or a half day on a topic and the afternoon as a handler’s choice format.

Two Day Seminars

Seminars are two days and follow the same format as workshops. Seminars can have 12 working teams and 30 auditors.  Seminars can have different topics each day or a topic one day and the second day as a handler’s choice format. Another option is a different topic each morning and afternoons as handler’s choice.

If you’re interested in a workshop or seminar feel free to contact Deb with any questions and for more information using the form below or directly, via email at: plnetk9@aol.com.