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FE280: Cutting Out the Cookies (or Toys!) - Reducing Reinforcement for R+ Trainers

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FE280: Cutting Out the Cookies (or Toys!) - Reducing Reinforcement for R+ Trainers

Course Details

Ever feel envy when you watch a obedience/rally/Schutzhund/etc… trial performance and the dog executes perfect skills for the WHOLE routine? No treats in the handler’s pocket, no toy in their hand, but the dog is certainly acting like there is!

Meanwhile you’ve got a bait bag on one hip, cookies in one hand, and a toy in the other, reinforcing for sits and focus around other dogs. The thought of sequencing a trial routine together without treats gives you butterflies in your stomach a hitch in your breathing and worse…

Trust me, I’ve been there. With my dog Ones, I felt panic overwhelming me at the thought of heeling onto a ring without MY pacifier, his puffy tug toy. And my sport of choice, Schutzhund, has an obedience phase that lasts for up to 10 minutes, and that’s not even counting the down stay at the end where the judge picks apart your routine in front of the whole audience!

How DO you ever get from here to there? Well, the key is to train some specific pieces and to start thinking of reinforcing in terms of dog’s effort, rather than specific skills. Join me in this class as I detail out some steps/concepts that are really going to help break it down and make it more achievable. We’ll be working through specific behaviors in class, ideally to get to a trial ready performance!

This is not an entry level class! Dog and Handler teams that would do best in this class are ones that have finished behaviors and behavior chains and are thinking of trialing in the future. I won't be covering "how" to train skills, but I will be covering "what" to train, how often to reinforce and not reinforce already established behavior skills, etc... Knowledge of your specific sport rules is also a plus!

Teaching Approach

For this class, I'll be releasing 3-5 lectures a week, one at a time. There will be written homework, video homework, discussions, etc... Lectures that require video homework consist of written bullet points and short video examples of those points. Explanations are in text, not on the videos.

Shade WhiteselInstructor: Shade Whitesel

Shade Whitesel (she/her) has been training and competing in dog sports since she was a kid. Always interested in how dogs learn, she has successfully competed in IPO/schutzhund, AKC obedience and French Ring. Her retired dog, Reiki vom Aegis, IPO 3, FH 1, French Ring 1, CDX, was 5th at the...(Click here for full bio and to view Shade's upcoming courses)

Syllabus

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 Concept 1: Opportunity

  • Timing
  • Movement as Reinforcement

Concept 2: Effort

  • Effort for specific behaviors
  • Sequencing

Concept 3: Duration

  • Trial Run through
  • Should I trial?
  • Put the easy reps in
  • Timed trick sessions
  • Dog's expectations

Concept 4: Environmental Confidence

  • Trial like locations equal fun
  • Ready to Work
  • Reset Behavior-information

Concept 5: All the training things

  • Trial Skills
  • Make hard behaviors easy
  • Transitions between exercises
  • People Proximity
  • Object Proximity
  • Start and End rituals

Concept 6: Conditioning

  • Physical
  • Mental

Concept 7: Variable Reinforcement

  • Variable reinforcement

Prerequisites & Supplies

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 Finished behaviors that you want to work on

Goal for trialing

Established training language with your dog

Sample Lecture

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Should I trial?

 

Concept/Goal:

Handler looks at information gleaned from trial run through and thinks about the point deductions, how close they are to trialing, etc....

 

Run through Assessment:

The first thing to ask yourself is

  • Should you trial?
  • Can you work on all the things you need to work on and get them done before trialing?
  • Look at disqualification reasons. Can your dog do the big stuff? In AKC you are not allowed 2 cues in many of the exercises, so for instance if your dog is inattentive when you recall them, and doesn’t come on the first recall cue, you will fail. Know your rules!

 

Other thoughts:

Big point deductions? Little point deductions? What should you care about and what should you let go? If concentrating on one little thing results in a big thing going bad, figure that out.

 

In Talic’s case, yes, I’m pretty confident. He knows all the major skills and concepts, nothing is DQ worthy, everything is little points and I am being picky. He’s got the big stuff! There are no surprises, outside of surprises always happen in trial, but basically he should definitely be able to pass and bonus, get a pretty good score.

 

(Now his IGP 1 protection is another matter all together!)

I chose to talk about obedience stuff with Talic, because that is more familiar to my students.

 

But take a look at this protection run through:

IGP 1 protection

  • Get on Field-dog is on leash, but needs to be in control, walk the entire football sized field length along the midline, before stopping and removing the leash and setting up for
  • Send to blind, dog barks at helper for 40 seconds
  • Judge motions me in, I walk behind dog
  • Call dog back to heel
  • Escape bite with some heeling thrown in, helper stops, dog has to out.
  • I pick up dog from helper (no touching, ask to heel) Heel down field
  • Turn around, send dog to bite again, 2 outs, pick up dog again
  • Escort helper in side transport to judge, heel dog away to attach leash to collar.

 

Talic’s answers:

As is always in protection, the dog has to both pay attention to the helper and to the handler. He has to bark with extreme focus on the helper, yet sit quickly when I approach and ask him to. The dogs always have challenges here, and leading up to trial, it’s a delicate dance of too much focus on one thing or another.

 

  • Talic is leaky and vocalizing on his walk up the field. Little points, but may be big points if he is overaroused and can’t hear me on potential disqualification things.
  • Hold and bark-excellent
  • Call back, he comes back immediately, but leaves me and goes to bark again. Depending on judge, this could be a disqualification. (out of control) That over arousal I was talking about!
  • Comes back on second cue, heels nicely when asked, bites and outs when asked.
  • We avoid the picking up the dog out of guarding, because we know this is fragile and still in teaching stage.
  • Heel down field is fine, distraction stay is fine, bites and outs nicely, guards with duration, but again, we avoid picking up out of guarding.
  • Side transport is not attentive, he doesn’t sit when he’s supposed to, but basically under control for the rest of it.

 

So…..

Got some potential DQ big items there, including me picking him up out of guarding. Should I trial? It is a very shaky yes, and I need to be prepared to pull if he is not ready.

 

Homework:

Write out your thoughts about the information gleaned from your dog's run through

 

Testimonials & Reviews

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A sampling of what prior students have said about this course ...

While there are so many resources for training competition behaviours and even chains, I always felt a bit mystified as to how to do a long series of complex behaviours plus transitions in the ring with no food or toys. This course is the missing link in the chain from training to trialing! Shade breaks things down into achievable steps and provides amazing coaching all along the way.       


This class was terrific! I learned so much from Shade about how to read my dog and break things down in order to get the behavior I am ultimately looking for in competition.              


Shade added a spectrum of choices for her students when it comes rewarding their dogs, broadening our arsenal of tools to use. She made it clear that reducing reinforcement involves a keen understanding of your dog and vigilantly watching out for the breakdowns and flags that a behavior might be lesser quality than usual. And rewarding on a curve for those easy behaviors in a hard environment. Moderately hard location?Ready yourself to change-up that reinforcement, deliver it wisely, and keep your partner interested and engaged by design. Let's teach our dogs more marker words and feel confident about Cutting Out The Cookie!       


Shade is an incredible teacher and makes the content interesting, easy to follow and just the right amount of challenging. I have enjoyed all the courses I’ve taken with Shade but this is my favorite.                


This course is a must for all trainers even if you don’t think you need it. Shade always gets me back on track. I had one foot out for the sport I was doing with my dog, and the most simple things that are so easy to overlook in your own training can be corrected with good guidance. The course was a perfect way to step back and look at where the holes are. It’s given me the confidence to continue and to keep making progress. Thank you Shade.         


Once again, Shade delivers an excellent and well thought out class that focuses on 7 Concepts critical for trialing. This accommodates everything from Ring Sports and IGP to Agility, Rally, CD, etc. This is one class I will be referring back to over and over again in the future because it is jam packed with gold nuggets that will help find all the weak places in your training and help you find a plan to turn them into strengths. And most of all, Shade’s feedback is always “spot on.” She is truly amazing.       


Very nicely presented, easy to follow even for Bronze spot students. Shades Feedback to the Golds was very considerate and she made sure that the contents of the lectures included what people were expecting. Very helpful course for people who think of trialing and how to deal with rewards in those situations.         

  

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration opens at  10:30am Pacific Time.

FE280 Subscriptions


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Tuition $ 260.00 $ 130.00 $ 65.00
Enrollment Limits 12 25 Unlimited
Access all course lectures and materials ✔ ✔ ✔
Access to discussion and homework forums ✔ ✔ ✔
Read all posted questions and answers ✔ ✔ ✔
Watch all posted videos ✔ ✔ ✔
Post general questions to Discussion forum ✔ ✔ ✖
Submit written assignments ✔ ✖ ✖
Post dog specific questions ✔ With video only ✖
Post videos ✔ Up to 2 ✖
Receive instructor feedback on
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  • All videos
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