Newcomer Orientation

Aaron Clayton

Location: Portland & DC
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!

Attend this Orientation and then follow up with the general Opening Session at 9:00 am!

Cueing is a critical component of clicker training. We recommend that you attend the Session and the Lab “What a Cue Can Do.”

What a Cue Can Do: Developing Cueing Skills

Kathy Sdao

Location: Portland & DC
Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic: Skill

Related Learning Lab:

• What a Cue Can Do – In Action! – 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.

Cueing is a critical component of clicker training. We recommend that you attend the Session and the Lab What a Cue Can Do.

What a Cue Can Do – In Action!

Sarah Owings

Location: Portland & DC
Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Foundation
Topic: Skill

Prerequisite Session:

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

Participant Notes:

Dogs need to have at least 2-3 behaviors on cue, be comfortable with normal handling, and be comfortable working in close quarters with other dogs and people. Any dogs that seem overly stressed or disruptive will be asked to move to a far corner of the room or asked to leave. Handlers need a minimum of foundation-level clicker training experience. 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.

Understanding and working with cues effectively is a key component of becoming a skilled clicker trainer. This Lab 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 to tease out the most salient aspects of their cues by testing the parameters of those cues one by one. If dogs are making mistakes, we will then use what we learn from the “saliency tests” to clear up any cuing confusions or communication glitches.

Depending on time and skill-level of participants, we may also go through the process of shaping a simple behavior, putting it on cue, and then teaching the dogs how to wait and listen for that cue. Reviewing best practices and shaping basics in this way is important, because behaviors taught cleanly right from the start, with cues added at the correct time, rarely need any cleaning up later.

Looking for a way to connect the dots between other horse training paradigms and clicker training?
This would be a great choice for horse trainers.

Striking it Rich! Gold Nuggets from Popular Horse Training Paradigms

Peggy Hogan

Location: Portland
Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: Equine, Skill

Looking back through the techniques and concepts of other horse training philosophies has the potential to be helpful and bring insights for horse trainers transitioning to clicker training. Join Peggy as she mines for usable gold—insights about horses and behavior—buried in other training approaches, insights that are both consistent with and helpful to learning and adopting positive reinforcement-based techniques.

The horse community in general is a relative newcomer to the world of clicker training. By connecting dots between past and future practices, Peggy makes it easier to adopt, adapt, and use clicker training principles with horses. For example, Peggy will look at other horse training processes and protocols, ranging from Dressage to Natural Horsemanship. She will show how to adopt popular techniques like training at liberty, developing a soft feel, and creating tactile cues, all with positive reinforcement.

This 90-minute Session will include video examples and some light audience participation.

Need a little wonder and inspiration? See how the principles and practices you are learning apply to the wider planet’s organisms great and small.

The Learning Planet

Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D.

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

Earth is often called the blue planet because of its impressive oceans. However, at least as impressive, but less well considered, is the extent to which Earth’s inhabitants—mammals, insects, and even plants—change their behaviors based on experience, specifically consequences. Consequences also change brain function and gene expression—the “whole shebang.” In this Session, different aspects of the learning planet will be discussed, guided by Susan Schneider’s book The Science of Consequences, and several other seminal works. Key points will be illustrated with video examples.

If you attended “Train That Chain” on Day 1, this course provides you that next level of skill and understanding about chaining. Back-chaining is a linchpin skill for anyone training behavior that will will have multiple parts.

Training Backwards: Building Reliable Behavior Sequences with Back-Chaining

Michele Pouliot

Location: Portland & DC
Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Intermediate
Topic:  Competition, Skill

Training individual behaviors effectively via clicker training can be challenging. Connecting several behaviors into a behavior sequence that will be reliable in performance, without rewards, is a next-level challenge. Every trainer wants behavior chains that result in enthusiastic and reliable responses from their partners.

Joining three to five behaviors into a dependable performance chain is a common goal for many trainers. Imagine creating a behavior chain of 30 to 70 behaviors! The sport of Canine Musical Freestyle requires developing routines (performance chains) comprised of many behaviors. The more advanced a Freestyle team becomes, the longer the performance chain.

In 2007, Michele first learned about applying back-chaining for putting sequences together, but she did not use it extensively. However, over the past 10 years, Michele has experienced impressive results from the back-chaining tool, expanding her use and confidence in its application. In addition to improved reliability with back-chained behavior sequences, she has also experienced its effect on improving performance duration without primary reinforcers.

In this Session, Michele will share her step-by-step process of building very long behavior sequences (60+ behaviors) via back-chaining. The presentation will use video examples of chains being built as well as the outcomes of those chains in actual performance. You do not need to take part in canine freestyle to appreciate the task of building performance chains of more than 50 behavior cues in succession.

Come and learn about “training backwards!”

Practice and build the skills you’ve been learning without your dog being the guinea pig! Both enlightening and fun.

Real Skills, Fake Dogs

Theresa McKeon

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

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!

The use of non-food reinforcers is another critical skill that is often overlooked, so you won’t go wrong with this Lab.

Love it! Effective Non-Food Reinforcement

Ken Ramirez

Location: Washington DC
Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: Advanced
Topic: Skill, Shelter & Rescue

Participant Notes: 

Dogs should be clicker-savvy, have a robust behavioral repertoire, and regularly and effectively use toys or play as a reinforcer already. 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 is extremely useful, but requires an understanding of their role in training and a well-thought-out training approach. This stand-alone Lab focuses on two main practical aspects of using non-food reinforcers: how novel stimuli, like clapping and verbal praise, become reinforcers; and how to maximize the use of play and toys.

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. In the latter half of the Lab, the focus will be on using play and toys as reinforcers—demonstrating their use with participating dogs, as well as maintaining and evaluating their effectiveness.

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.

Join Ken for this important Lab. You’ll “Love It!”

If you attended the Shaping course, this is an awesome follow-up. Get a good look at where you can go next, duration, and learn how you can implement the principles and practices that build duration in shaped behaviors.   

Duration Without Frustration

Hannah Branigan

Location: Portland & DC 
Course Type: Session
Skill Level: Intermediate
Topic: Competition, Skill

Related Learning Lab:

• Duration Without Frustration – In Action!

Is shaping for duration as simple as just waiting to reinforce longer behaviors? I don’t know about you, but that has not been my experience!

Well beyond a boring sit-stay, there are many situations where we want to train our dogs to perform a particular behavior for an extended amount of time, but this process often leads to frustration on both the part of the learner and the trainer. This Session will explore the different forms that duration can take in our training depending on the behavior in question and examine why it is sometimes so darn hard to train.

We will look at how the entire behavior cycle influences the behavior being trained, and why we are best served by setting our criteria so that we are always training “clean” units of behavior. We will look at examples and techniques that allow us to set up our training sessions to minimize frustration (in both trainer and learner!) while increasing duration of the behavior.

Many people start out with luring as the main component of their training; it’s important to be able to make informed choices about when and how to apply that training.

To Lure and Not To Lure: Effective Use and Omission of Lures in Training

Michele Pouliot

Location: Portland & DC 
Course Type: Learning Lab
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic:  Competition, Skill, Teaching Others

Participant Notes: 

Dogs should already understand the click/treat relationship, be comfortable with and able to work in close quarters with other dogs (no reactive dogs please). Handlers should have experience with shaping via marker training. You may participate with your dog or you may attend as an observer. Observers should not bring their dogs to the Lab.

This is a Combination Learning Lab and Session, mixing lecture with hands-on training for 4 working participants with their dogs. The Session will include PowerPoint presentation, video demos, and hands-on training exercises with working teams.

The use of lures to prompt behavior in clicker training has been a controversial topic for several years. Many clicker trainers claim that lures are problematic in advancing behavior, as the lure becomes a required cue for response, and/or that the Lure prevents dogs from thinking about what behavior they are doing actively. Other clicker trainers claim that lures allow them to prompt the behavior they desire quickly, making the training process much faster.

In this Lab, Michele will strive to validate the conclusion that both opinions are very much correct. The Lab will focus on how to use lures effectively as training tools while preventing a reliance on them and not distracting the learner from awareness of the behavior in process.

The 4 handler/dog teams will train new behaviors. The first training sessions will use thoughtfully planned and applied lures to initiate desired behavior. Within 2 training sessions, these lures will be omitted thoughtfully and replaced with desired behavior cues to further progress those behaviors.

Need a little wonder and inspiration? See how the principles and practices that you are learning apply to wider planets organisms great and small.

The Learning Planet

Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D.

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

Earth is often called the blue planet because of its impressive oceans. However, at least as impressive, but less well considered, is the extent to which Earth’s inhabitants—mammals, insects, and even plants—change their behaviors based on experience, specifically consequences. Consequences also change brain function and gene expression—the “whole shebang.” In this Session, different aspects of the learning planet will be discussed, guided by Susan Schneider’s book The Science of Consequences, and several other seminal works. Key points will be illustrated with video examples.

Super fun table game that let you experience being the learner and teacher in a simulated training setting. Settle in and have fun.

Game On! Train or Be Trained

Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz

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

Participant Notes: 

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.

Great clicker training relies on effective communication between teacher and learner. A well-timed click, effective delivery of reinforcement, and a well-thought-out plan go a long way to make the experience a joyful one for both human and animal. Although we all know this, nothing compares to actually experiencing it.

In this Lab, you will be introduced to PORTL (the Portable Operant Teaching and Research Lab) and introduced to how it can be used to gain insight into the training process. PORTL is a game played with a collection of small objects and a clicker. The teacher communicates with the learner entirely through reinforcement. No instructions, prompts, or models are used during the game to direct the learner. PORTL can be used to improve mechanical skills, model training concepts and behavioral principles, and gain insight in developing and modifying a shaping plan.

This Lab will introduce you to PORTL and the basics of how to set up and play PORTL.

We will practice the fundamentals of PORTL mechanics and play one exercise where you will get to be the teacher or the learner. After the exercise, we will discuss what you experienced while playing the game, including your emotions as the learner or teacher. Through these activities, you will experience how PORTL can be an effective teaching tool for helping people understand clicker training and improve their shaping skills.

Closing Session: Hidden Treasures 2019☆

Ken Ramirez

Location: Portland & DC
Course Type: Session
Skill Level: All Levels
Topic: General

Wrap up the ClickerExpo weekend with Ken as he opens a treasure chest of new, inspirational, real-life stories about the impact of trainers and good training on animals, people and the world. Join Ken for stories worth telling and worth hearing in a closing Session you won’t want to miss.