Designed for individuals who train and handle their own working dog (narcotics, explosives, arson), work as a foster, puppy raiser or puppy sitter for service dog organizations or trainers responsible for developing working dogs. We address concerns of the working dog world, this seminar develops an understanding of setting training procedures and developing the mechanical skills and abilities of the trainer/handler.  

This two day comprehensive seminar includes classroom time and hands on work to provide trainers with an overview of skills, abilities and exercises to build a well rounded working dog. This class focuses on giving the trainer skills to deliberately set learning opportunities for their K9 partner to advance their overall performance. 

Focus is on training the trainer, meeting the team at its level and providing a challenging and safe learning environment.

During this course the practical application portion of the class will be as follows:

• Students will learn concepts around stimulus control, which is the foundation for obedience work and the foundation of a trained final response in odor detection work.
• Students will learn how to safely find and work motivational operation development (drive work) in a puppy.
• Environmental socialization and body awareness

Topics Covered:

• Discussion of learning processes

• Development of a plan to reinforce desired behavior chains (and how to break undesired behavior chains)

• Discrimination and Stimulus control – ignoring distractions

Students will leave the course with an understanding of stimulus control, an understanding of how to develop training procedures to achieve target behaviors, and new ideas to be incorporated into their everyday training routine.  

Instructors: Robin Greubel and Jennifer Hirakawa

Course is held online through Zoom. Held Monday evenings starting January 27, 2020.