Newcomer Orientation

Aaron Clayton

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: General

Welcome to ClickerExpo! Aaron Clayton will help you make the most of your experience in this Session designed specifically for newcomers to ClickerExpo. He will cover topics that include how to maximize your chances of winning the daily raffles, navigating ClickerExpo with your dog, choosing courses and changing your schedule, and attending special events.

This practical but humorous 45-minute introduction to ClickerExpo is a “must” for those experiencing the magic of ClickerExpo for the first time. The Session is a wonderful refresher for Expo veterans, too!

Opening Session: Hello Basics, My Old Friend, You’ve Made Me Seem Advanced Again!☆

Aaron Clayton & Ken Ramirez

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: General

Self-assessing your own skill level can be daunting! What constitutes an “advanced” or “experienced” trainer? Does everyone else see your skills the same way you do? Ken’s perspective has always been that advanced training is just the basics done “really, really, really well!”

Is it the tools used that are advanced? Or, is the advanced designation reserved for a certain number of years of experience—and, if so, how many? Looking at years of experience, how does the quality of that experience fit into the equation? After Aaron kicks off 2020, Ken will launch ClickerExpo with a discussion of advanced training and how it impacts work in the real world as well as your experience at ClickerExpo.

Jumpstart!☆

Kathy Sdao

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic: Science, Skill

If you’re new to clicker training, or if you’ve been using it but are confused by the terminology or uncertain why we do things the way we do, this Session is for you. This is a concise course covering key scientific principles that govern clicker training and the practical implications that flow from those principles. The information you’ll learn will inform the many choices you make as a trainer and will improve your application of clicker training techniques. Start your ClickerExpo experience on Friday with this Session and you will have the foundation and vocabulary to help you understand, enjoy, and benefit from the rest of the program.

Building Behavior: Shape the Future

Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic: Skill

Related Learning Lab: 

• Building Behavior: Shape the Future – In Action!

Some of the most common questions about clicker training relate to obtaining a new, desirable behavior to mark and reinforce. Luring, modeling, capturing, and prompting can take us only so far, and shaping seems like such a complex challenge. Let’s talk about splitting a behavior into many tiny steps and progressing smoothly through a training plan to a goal behavior. In this way, animals discover their own creativity, power, and desire to work with a trainer. Shaping is fun for both trainer and learner. It builds a great relationship, but requires awareness and comprehension of the game by the animal, and both conceptual and mechanical fluency in the trainer. We will work on concepts in the Session first, and then on mechanical and technical skills in the Learning Lab.

Don’t Get Burned by Blazing Clickers☆

Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D.

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic:  Science, Skill, Teaching Others

Trainers in the Karen Pryor tradition have learned that when a clicker is used correctly it marks precisely the animal’s behavior that controls the reinforcer. Behavior is strengthened when the clicks becomes a reliable predictor of backup reinforcement. This is accomplished by ensuring that every click is followed by a well-established reinforcer.

However, some trainers repeatedly mark behavior without backing up the marker, a practice we call blazing clickers. Blazing clickers weaken the predictive value of the marker, resulting in slower learning, increased aggression, and, sometimes, giving up. In this Session, the science-based rationale for following every click with a backup reinforcer will be reviewed, and we will explore the faulty reasoning often used to support the practice of blazing clickers. With this information, you will be able to teach others why and how to avoid getting burned by blazing clickers.

Training in Loops (TeamTaught)☆

Alexandra Kurland, Michele Pouliot, Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, Emelie Johnson Vegh & Eva Bertilsson

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic:  Aggression & Behavior Management, Competition, Equine, Science, Skill, Teaching Others

Training in Loops or “Loopy training” represents an image of the effective clicker training process. Cue => Behavior/Click => Reinforcement => Cue => Behavior/Click => Reinforcement => Cue …the loop repeats.

You want clean loops. That means there is no unwanted behavior creeping into the loop and all the behaviors are performed promptly and fluidly. Training in loops reminds you that both sides of the click must be clean for a loop to be clean. All parts of the cycle are important. In this team-taught presentation, each presenter will focus on a different part of the loop.

Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz will look at the overall structure of loops, their connection to movement cycles, and more. It is often said that good training has a rhythm to it. What is at the heart of good training and what creates this rhythm are “training loops.” This section of the presentation will focus on the science behind training loops.

Alexandra Kurland will focus on the “behavior” part of the loop. If you want clean loops, you need to find a starting point where you can get consistent “yes answer” responses. This may mean starting with a very small kernel of a loop. These small beginnings grow very quickly through the loopy training process. Then, the question is, have you embedded the right movement cycle into your loop so you achieve your performance goals?

Behavior leads to click leads to reinforcement… Michele Pouliot will demonstrate how the reinforcement delivery section of the loop is as important as all of the other portions of the loop. The delivery must flow smoothly and efficiently in order to prepare the learner to repeat the desired behavior again. The trainer’s awareness of reinforcement-delivery requirements that allow the loop to flow effortlessly into the next repetition of the preferred behavior is essential. Strategic, thoughtful use of reinforcement delivery can span one portion of the movement cycle, setting the learner up well to repeat a desired action.

Behavior leads to click leads to reinforcement leads to more behavior… but, not so fast! When you thin slice the movement cycle, you discover an important step. Emelie Johnson Vegh and Eva Bertilsson will look at strategies for ending the reinforcement process and transitioning to the next iteration of the target behavior.

As each presenter adds another piece to the overall understanding of training in loops, you will make your way to the goal behavior—a full understanding of the power of training in loops.

Building Behavior: Shape the Future – In Action!

Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic:  Skill

Prerequisite Session:

• Building Behavior: Shape the Future

Participant Notes:

We will have approximately 8 dog/handler teams. Dogs should already understand the click/treat relationship, be comfortable with normal handling, and be able to work in close quarters with other dogs. To participate in this Lab, you are expected to attend the prerequisite Session. You may participate with your dog or you may attend as an observer. Observers should not bring their dogs to the Lab.

Some of the most common questions about clicker training relate to obtaining a new, desirable behavior to mark and reinforce. Luring, modeling, capturing, and prompting can take us only so far, and shaping seems like such a complex challenge. Let’s talk about splitting a behavior into many tiny steps and progressing smoothly through a training plan to a goal behavior. In this way, animals discover their own creativity, power, and desire to work with a trainer. Shaping is fun for both trainer and learner. It builds a great relationship, but requires awareness and comprehension of the game by the animal, and both conceptual and mechanical fluency in the trainer. We will work on concepts in the Session first, and then on mechanical and technical skills in the Learning Lab.

Smallest Success Point: Using Capturing for Management & Problem-Solving☆

Laura Monaco Torelli

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic:  Aggression & Behavior Management, Science, Shelter & Rescue, Skill, Teaching Others

Related Learning Lab:

• Smallest Success Point – In Action!

We don’t advocate flooding techniques with an animal learner. So why overwhelm an animal handler with too many steps in a caregiver plan?

Capturing behavior that an animal offers naturally on its own is common practice in zoological programs, but less common in canine handling and teaching. This invaluable approach can help reduce stress for everyone involved in the training process. In many cases, capturing identifies a small but crucial point of success that helps people understand how to change the conditions to change behavior.

This Session will include lecture, video presentations, demonstrations, and practical applications that relate to everyday problem-solving.

In this Session, you’ll learn:

• The benefits of capturing behavior
• Management and behavior-modifications plans that complement each other
• Useful tips that demonstrate classical and operant conditioning
• Through discussions and examples, how to use environmental conditions to benefit hands-on sessions with clients, handlers, and animals
• Considerations about when and how to apply capturing techniques
• How to integrate video and data as a supportive tutorial
• TAGteach application for the handler side of shaping plans
• How to incorporate practical applications into your teaching curriculum
• Record-keeping strategies to help jump-start training session plans
• Tips about animal introductions and a multi-species environment
• Engaging exercises to utilize in your personal training or course curriculum
• and more!

Making Your Way: Professional Education with Karen Pryor Clicker Training

Ken Ramirez

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Aggression & Behavior Management, Business, Competition, Equine, Health & Wellness, Human, Science, Shelter & Rescue, Skill, Teaching Others, Veterinary

Feeling jazzed by your experience at Expo? This is just a taste! The core mission of Karen Pryor Clicker Training (KPCT) is to help people “train better. In support of that mission, we provide a variety of educational opportunities for professional trainers and training enthusiasts, including ClickerExpo. But there are more opportunities! Join Ken Ramirez, Chief Training Officer for KPCT, as he shares the many opportunities that are available for ongoing learning, training, and even certification.

Ken will discuss key components of the Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) Dog Trainer Professional certification program, the new online Dog Trainer Comprehensive course, and specialty online courses—including courses about teaching puppy classes and preparing for canine sports, and in-depth courses on reinforcement and teaching your dog concepts, taught by Ken himself. Ken will also share information about the hands-on courses available at the Karen Pryor National Training Center, aka The Ranch. Feed your early morning craving with a look at how to continue your learning experiences after ClickerExpo.

What a Cue Can Do: Developing Cueing Skills

Kathy Sdao

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic: Skill

Related Learning Lab: 

• What a Cue Can Do – In Action! with Sarah Owings

Effective cueing is essential for achieving reliable responses. The process of adding cues in clicker training is different than in other training methods. Getting behaviors on cue is often the most difficult concept for new clicker trainers to understand because the process is somewhat counterintuitive.

This Session is about choosing and maintaining effective cues for operant behaviors as well as understanding how cues are integral to more advanced training applications. Kathy will show you how to use cues to gain control of operant behaviors. You’ll learn what a cue is—and isn’t—and how cues differ from commands. We’ll discuss how to choose cues to maximize clarity and how cues function in behavior chains.

Backstage Pass: Live Training Sessions Deconstructed☆

Eva Bertilsson & Emelie Johnson Vegh, Hannah Branigan & Chirag Patel

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Intermediate, Advanced
Topic: Skill, Teaching Others

Participant Notes:

Register your dog for free as a demo volunteer for the chance to have the speakers work with your dog. There is no guarantee that your dog will be chosen, but it is important that your dog is comfortable working with strangers. Dogs must also be quiet and comfortable while other dogs are working. You may register your dog to participate or you may attend as an observer. Observers should not bring their dogs to the Lab.

Emelie, Eva, Chirag and Hannah are very excited about this workshop! After conversations during last year’s Clicker Expo, the foursome decided to get together in a format where they could explore the details of training and showcase their thought processes underlying the training. The group has never trained together (apart from a few brief sessions with some fish in a hotel lobby at ClickerExpo) and each trainer is genuinely curious to observe and discuss how the others go about their training sessions.

To learn from someone else’s training (or to help someone advance his or her training) a thorough understanding of what’s actually going on in the training session is fundamental. How do you reach this understanding? How do you observe, and what questions can you ask?

During this workshop there will be unscripted training sessions offered on stage by each faculty member, one at a time. The training will then be discussed. What was going on? Which details were critical, and which were irrelevant? What decisions were made, and why? Flowcharts and inquiries about what, when, where, how, and why will help articulate the training process, as will questions about goals and priorities.

E & E, Chirag, and Hannah invite you to join them in a joyful, yet thoughtful, workshop designed to find ways to observe, think, and talk about training. This Session will help trainers understand each other’s set-ups and develop them further.

What a Cue Can Do – In Action!

Sarah Owings

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic: Skill

Prerequisite Session: 

• What a Cue Can Do: Developing Cueing Skills with Kathy Sdao

Participant Notes: 

We will have approximately 8 dog/handler teams. Dogs and handlers should have some basic clicker training experience and at least 3 basic behaviors more or less on cue. Dogs should be comfortable working in close quarters with other dogs and people. Any dogs that seem stressed or disruptive may be asked to leave. To participate in this Lab, you are expected to attend the prerequisite Session.

Understanding cues is key to becoming a skilled clicker trainer. In this Lab we will explore what cues are and how they set the stage for behavior by asking the age-old question: “Does your cue really mean what your dog thinks it means?”

Working in small discussion groups along with observers, participants will be guided through teasing out the most salient aspects their cues by testing the parameters of those cues one by one. We will then use what we learn from these “saliency tests” to clear up any cuing confusions or communication glitches evidenced by dogs making mistakes.

Depending on time and the skill-level of participants, we may also go through the process of shaping a simple behavior, putting it on cue, and teaching the dogs how to wait for that cue. Behaviors taught cleanly right from the start, with cues added at the correct time, rarely need any cleaning up later on.

Love it! Effective Non-Food Reinforcement

Ken Ramirez

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Intermediate
Topic: Competition, Science, Skill, Shelter & Rescue

Participant Notes: 

We will have approximately 8 dog/handler teams. Dogs should be clicker-savvy, have a robust behavioral repertoire, and be comfortable working around other dogs. You may participate with your dog or you may attend as an observer. Observers should not bring their dogs to the Lab.

The effective use of non-food reinforcers is a critical skill that all trainers will likely use or need at some point in their training career. Being able to use non-food reinforcers requires an understanding of their role in training and a well-thought-out training approach. This Session/Lab combo focuses on how novel stimuli, like clapping and verbal praise, become reinforcers. This will only be an introduction to the topic. Dog/handler teams will have the opportunity to start training novel stimuli as reinforcers and gain valuable insight from Ken about how to maintain the strength of these unique reinforcers. Observers and dog/handler teams will all get valuable tips and strategies for making non-food reinforcers more effective. The Lab will include some brief video examples and a step-by-step demonstration of how to teach new reinforcers to an animal.

Breaker of Chains, Builder of Behavior☆

Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D. & Theresa McKeon

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Intermediate, Advanced
Topic: Science, Skill, Teaching Others, Human

Participant Notes: 

We will have approximately 24 spots for participants. You may participate or you may attend as an observer. This Lab is for people; no need to bring your dogs—let them rest! The focus will be on trainer skills.

Just like links in a chain, complex behaviors can be broken down into component parts to facilitate instruction and improve learning outcomes. Once each link is mastered, links are reassembled as they are performed in a specific order, which leads to reinforcement.

Teaching behavior chains successfully and efficiently depends on at least two critical teaching skills:

1. an ability to do an accurate task analysis of the component behaviors that comprise the chain, and
2. an effective instructional strategy as exemplified by the TAGteach methodology

In this no-dog Lab, participants will conduct a task analysis and instruct their lab partners to perform the behavior chain. After evaluating the outcomes, participants will revise their analyses and instructions to improve their partners’ learning outcomes.

You Are Not Uncoordinated! (Just Not Fluent—Yet.)☆

Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic:  Business, Skill, Teaching Others

Participant Notes:

In this lab everyone will participate! We will have approximately 60 spots for participants. This Lab is for people; no need to bring your dogs—let them rest! The focus will be on trainer skills.

On the surface, clicker training is simple! Just click and hand out a treat. How hard can it be? But when you start considering accurate timing, balancing a leash or lead, carrying and picking out those treats, a target stick, walking… Suddenly there are late clicks, slow or dropped treats, inaccurate target placement, and a host of other “coordination” issues that slow or frustrate simple training.

We know skills must be learned, so let’s teach them. In this Learning Lab, we will work on the fundamental motor skills for technically solid training. The goal is to handle target sticks and leashes and clickers all at once while delivering treats accurately, like training superheroes! Learn some techniques for jump-starting clients so that they can get up to speed with their own training more quickly.

This Lab is for people; only service dogs at work are welcome to attend. This Lab is for building motor skills, not training dogs.

Uncensored: Let’s Talk Other Species – Insight from Outside the Canine Kingdom☆

Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D., Alexandra Kurland,  Chirag Patel, Ken Ramirez, Kathy Sdao, & Laura Monaco Torelli

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Aggression & Behavior Management, Equine, Science, Shelter & Rescue, Skill, Veterinary

Join us for a panel discussion on working with species other than dogs. What lessons carry over across all species? What can dog trainers take away from what non-dog trainers do? Are there key techniques used specifically with certain species that don’t transfer, and, if not, why not? This discussion is unscripted and uncensored and no topic is off the table. Listen to the lively discussion and, during the last portion of the discussion, participate yourself by asking questions of the panel.

Safe and Skilled: Behaviors That Defuse Dangerous Situations☆

Emma Parsons

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Aggression & Behavior Management, Skill

Related Learning Lab:

• Safe and Skilled – In Action!

The right behavior can stop a reactive or aggressive episode in its tracks! It can prevent an episode from happening, or it can shorten the duration of an event. In this Session, you will learn how to teach dogs these essential behaviors, discuss how to use them more effectively, and learn how selecting the proper cues will also solidify the reliability of these behaviors. When foundation behaviors are described, these behaviors, performed at the level of performance criteria, are not what most people think of. But for any dog around other dogs, perhaps they should be! These behaviors include: Get Behind, Back-Up Sit, Recall with Back-Up, Back-Up with Down, and Emergency Recall.

Safe and Skilled – In Action!☆

Emma Parsons

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Aggression & Behavior Management, Skill

Prerequisite Session:

• Safe and Skilled: Behaviors That Defuse Dangerous Situations

Participant Notes:

We will have approximately 8 dog/handler teams. Dogs must be experienced working successfully in a busy group setting and in close quarters with other working dogs, even when excited. You may participate with your dog or you may attend as an observer. Observers should not bring their dogs to the Lab. To participate in this Lab, you are expected to attend the prerequisite Session.

This workshop will let participants practice the safety behaviors described in the prerequisite Session with their dogs. Based on the dog’s and trainer’s experience, attendees will either be combining single behaviors into compound cues or teaching the behavior from scratch. Whatever their experience levels, attendees should leave with a clear understanding of how to perfect these very important behaviors.

Deep Impact II: More Behaviors that Profoundly Change the Vet and Groomer Experience

Laura Monaco Torelli

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Health & Wellness, Skill, Teaching Others, Veterinary

Participant Notes:

We will have approximately 8 dog/handler teams. Handlers should have intermediate or advanced training skills and be able to work their dogs effectively in a distracting environment with other dogs, people, and props nearby. Dogs should be familiar and comfortable with basic targeting, general body tactile (head, ears, eyes, mouth, torso, paws, legs, tail), and, with a second person in proximity, approaching, interacting with, and potentially touching them. The dogs should also be familiar and comfortable with a variety of grooming and veterinary props (e.g., scale, resting a body part on an elevated surface, capped needles, nail trimmer, presence of and sound of a dremel, scent of ear cleaning solution, basket muzzle, gauze, nail file boards, etc.) You may participate with your dog or you may attend as an observer. Observers should not bring their dogs to the Lab. Laura Monaco Torelli will be emailing working teams simple training tips to help prepare them for this Lab.

These days, we know that training is about much more than “obedience” or “manners”—it’s an essential component of animal care. In fact, in the exotic animal world where Laura began her career, the focus of training is cooperative husbandry. Good medical health underpins good behavioral health, but many pets and their owners dread a visit to the groomer or vet. Some owners may also be reluctant to carry out treatment procedures with their animals in the home environment. These problems can be turned around with a simple approach that involves fun training games and engaging activities. It is important to recognize that some procedures (injections, suture removal, ointment or solution application to a sensitive or infected area, consuming medication) may result in aversive or punishing consequences.

In 2017, 2018, and 2019 Laura presented ClickerExpo Sessions entitled Deep Impact and Deep Impact II to a packed house. This year, Laura takes life-changing animal-care behaviors to a new level. Participants will learn how to set and quickly adjust criteria for husbandry behaviors, as well as how to observe canine and handler communication to gauge the dog team’s comfort level and readiness for the next step.

Behaviors and situations covered may include, but are not limited to:

• Resting body on various surfaces
• Integration of a second person
• Benefits of capturing behavior
• Chin rest onto a target
• Body presentation positions
• General body handling
• Eye and ear tactile

Engage! Start Your Training Session with Focus and Enthusiasm☆

Hannah Branigan

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Intermediate
Topic: Competition, Skill

We all want a dog that leaps into every training session with enthusiasm—focused, ready to work, and actively engaged in the learning process. Engagement is a sexy term in the dog world these days. But what does it mean? What does it look like? More importantly, how do you get it?

In this Session, we will operationalize the concept of engagement and discuss strategies to cultivate engagement in your dog so that you can initiate training sessions as effectively and efficiently as possible. Help your dog get into “training mode” quickly working at home or on the road.

Location, Location, Location: Refining Behavior with Reward Location

Michele Pouliot

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Intermediate
Topic:  Competition, Skill

Real estate agents know the power of “location.” Clicker trainers should understand and take advantage of the power of location as well. If you are interested in striving toward errorless learning, location strategies should be part of your training toolbox.

Positive reinforcement trainers use a variety of methods for reward delivery, depending on the goals for the behavior being trained. Styles of delivery can affect the learner in different ways; they can raise energy, promote stillness, reset for the next repetition, support a specific position, and more. Can the use of reward strategies take training even further?

In this Session, Michele shares her ongoing experiences applying reward strategies. Over the past eight years, Michele has discovered the power of using specific reward locations and deliveries for training and maintaining a variety of behaviors. Thoughtful location strategies support low-error learning sessions and rapid learning of even complex behaviors.

Michele will demonstrate training a variety of behaviors using specific reward strategies for each goal behavior. The results show how amazingly powerful a well-applied strategy can be and how it supports very fast learning. Behavior examples will include distance responses, challenging body poses, and a variety of trick behaviors.

Join Michele as she shares the available power of reward-location strategies and enlightening moments of discovery.

5 Bars: Boost the Signal Strength of Your Cues (TeamTaught)☆

Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D., Alexandra Kurland, Sarah Owings & Hannah Branigan

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic:  Skill, Science

Discriminative stimuli signal that certain reinforcers will be available if you behave in certain ways. Without these cues, behavior would be spraying out like water from a leaky faucet. Cues gain their strength to signal behavior because they lead to reinforcement. In the traditional paradigm, when a learner offers a different behavior than the one that was cued, extinction follows (i.e., reinforcement is withheld). As a result of this double contingency (reinforcement or extinction), cued behaviors increase and un-cued behaviors decrease. However, given the use of extinction, learners can experience detrimental side effects from a too-lean schedule of reinforcement.

Recently, some trainers have questioned the necessity of using extinction to put a behavior on cue. Their alternative strategies include training in pairs, training in highly varied contexts, training a default or standby behavior, and allowing cues to develop from the shaping process itself. In this presentation, four colleagues team-teach and review the traditional approach for getting a behavior under cue control. After that, they share their innovative procedures to boost your signal strength, reduce extinction fallout, and make sure your learners can “hear you now.”

Muzzle Tov!

Kathy Sdao

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Aggression & Behavior Management, Veterinary, Shelter & Rescue

Participant Notes:

We will have approximately 5 dog/handler teams. Dogs should already understand the click/treat relationship, be comfortable with normal handling, and be able to work in close quarters with other dogs. Handlers should have some experience with shaping. You may participate with your dog or you may attend as an observer. Observers should not bring their dogs to the Lab.

We invest time and care ensuring that each of our dogs is comfortable wearing a well-fitted harness or collar because we consider this gear essential for attaching leashes, carrying ID tags and more. Yet we tend to skip ensuring that our dogs are comfortable wearing a well-fitted muzzle because this gear is optional, right? Or only for bad dogs? And ugly and stigmatizing? Well, no… Come learn why muzzle training is a gift we can give every dog.

At some point in their lives, many dogs will be in a situation where fear, pain, or uncertainty makes them more likely to bite (e.g., at the emergency vet clinic or in a novel social situation). Having an easy way to place a barrier between the dog’s teeth and any proximate human or animal increases safety, opens up behavior-modification options, and helps everyone relax. We’ll discuss specific training applications where muzzles are an asset, tips to overcome client aversion, and potential problems to avoid. We’ll also practice muzzle-acclimation techniques.

The Art and Science of Non-Auditory Communication☆

Terrie Hayward

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Health & Wellness, Science, Skill, Teaching Others

Communication is both an art and a science. For dogs, a primary mode of communication is body language. This Session will focus on Terrie’s work with deaf dogs and how improving your non-auditory interaction methods can make you a more effective trainer.

Recognizing and understanding that dogs rely heavily on visual communication can enhance your skills with both deaf and hearing dogs. All dogs depend on body language to receive and disseminate information. This Session will address visual and tactile communication options and talk about creating positive CERs. We’ll also look at different types of deafness and discuss how working with non-auditory cues can prepare dogs for possible hearing loss, can add to your repertoire as a trainer, and can help sharpen your visual timing and skill sets, an overall bonus that serves to enhance your expertise as a trainer.

Real Skills, Fake Dogs

Theresa McKeon

Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic:  Skill, Teaching Others, Human

Participant Notes:

We will have approximately 25 spots for participants. You may participate or you may attend as an observer. This Lab is for people; no need to bring your dogs—let them rest! The focus will be on trainer skills.

In this Lab, stand-in animals, mirrors, video, and helpful humans will be the substitutes for live animals while you build your skill set and confidence. Practice to your heart’s content knowing that your partner will never get full, tired, confused, or stressed out.

The Lab will have stations for stress-free practice of clicker mechanics and basic training skills such as cueing, clicker timing, and treat delivery.

Advanced trainers can use the variety of stuffed, blow-up, rolling, puppet, and video animals to develop, practice, or polish techniques before you take on the real thing.

If you’ve ever said, “I understand the theory – I just need a chance to practice the practical,” then this is the Lab for you!

Closing Session: Hidden Treasures 2020☆

Ken Ramirez

Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: General

Ken will wrap up the ClickerExpo weekend with a new and inspirational story about the trainers and the good training he has encountered or experienced. There are often cool training stories and breakthroughs that may not warrant a full course at Expo, but they are stories worth telling. Ken promises that this is a Session that you won’t want to miss.