Course Outline:
Here are the broad topics we will cover during the course. I am not limited to these, but this will give you a taste of the core knowledge you will acquire. If you have a specialty interest that is not contained here, I have no problem customizing your program.

Ethics and Practice:
The current ethics of training form an incoherent collection of does and don’ts. There are intelligent, humane rules of conduct that will allow you to stay on the right side of practice.

Innate Behaviors:
Dogs are blessed with a host of genetic behaviors that are pre-loaded and ready to be awakened – or suppressed. This requires study. Some can be changed but not eliminated. Some can be stopped entirely. Some require coaxing to gain full development.

Autonomy:
All dogs are autonomous, group living creatures. If there is no group, they act on their own. In the relationship between trainer and dog, that is the area that is most important and least understood.

Associative Learning:
I spent three years seriously studying Pavlov’s Conditional Reflexes. (The correct translation of the title.) I did not go to the next topic until I fully comprehended each experiment and understood each chart and graph. You will not be required to duplicate his work, but you will get insights that will make your understanding of how to connect signals to events grow into practical skills.

Identifying behaviors:
Being able to identify a behavior for reward or punishment is the essence of training. The typical perspective on this is from the standpoint of an accepted norm. The question is always how to craft events to get to that ideal behavior. If the dog doesn’t perceive the behavior as a ‘thing’, all of your rewards and punishments will go awry.

Targeting:
The most powerful tool in your arsenal. This is going to be a focused topic during your instruction. There are three major benefits from targeting – using a remote target to teach directed movement, using a target stick to teach physical skills like heeling or agility and rapidly identifying the names of objects.

Variability:
The least studied and most important topic in training. Literally, ‘learning’ means deviation from existing norms. That is also called ‘variability’. Once you are comfortable allowing dogs to throw variations at you, you will see things you’ve never seen before. Instead of a tight, controlled process, you can leap-frog to exceptional performance or change long-standing behaviors immediately.

Inhibitions:
Normally the term punishment fails to describe the goal – immediately stopping a behavior and then blocking its return. This part of the course will teach both and answer the most important question in dog training – “how do you stop a single behavior, right now?” By learning the properties of aversive control, you will be able to integrate it into any training setting. From OCD to terrified dogs.

Tools:
Besides the various types of leashes, collars, halters, harnesses and clickers, modern technology offers new ways to apply old principles.

How a behavior develops:
Compulsion, Attraction and Avoidance

Selecting/Identifying behaviors:
Marker signals and beyond 

Hitching motivations:
Connecting existing and newly created behaviors to specific consequences

Precise Contingencies:
How to tell an animal that if they do X, they can expect Y.

Commands and Signals:
Hand, voice, sound, movement, position. The ins and outs of attaching arbitrary signals to behaviors.

Directional Control:
Getting a dog to go from point A to point B in the field. My version of this gives you the ability to direct your dog in one of five directions at any time - far more functional than 'left/right. 

Doing Theory:
Context driven rules for success. Critical analysis to decide which training modality is likely to achieve the best outcome.


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