Notes From the Road

Dog Training

We wanted to give y'all a headstart on the Seminar. Here are 7 instructional videos that will most likely get a bit of coverage in the Seminar. Please give them a look and test drive some of the concepts and techniques:

Dog Training

One thing that separates the Pros from the soon to be Pros is Throwing With Intent, intending to throw to a spot at a particular distance, height and time in order to elicit a jump from your dog. Sounds easy, right?

Well it is easy for some of us. Former football players are well aware of hitting a moving target via the Quarterback/Receiver relationship in their games. Soccer players know where to put it when a teammate “shows for the ball”. Hockey players fully understand how to pass the puck for a one-timer. Basketball players make unbelievable passes on the Fast Break. Baseball players are expert at throwing and often have football experience. There are some other athletic histories that can serve as foundational understanding of hitting a moving target in stride (Perhaps you’ll leave a comment below to draw attention to them.), but many people just do not have that particular athletic history to draw from and are not familiar with that concept.

Dog Training

Dog Training

One of the goals as a professional dog trainer is to have a simple, accessible philosophy that can be communicated easily and applied fairly simply by clients that are new to dog training.

One of the ways we do that as Positive Trainers is to speak very loosely and throw the words cookie, reward and reinforcement around and help our clients understand that this positive dog training stuff is simple.

“Mark for behavior, reward for position.”

“It’s simple, but not easy,” I often say to our clients as their dogs respond magically to most things that Apryl or I ask of them, “we just mark for behavior and reward for position.”

After a while this need for simplicity changes. Our clients start to dial things in, the dogs become little learning machines and the criteria required to deliver clear communication and understanding through marker training and positive reinforcement bumps up a notch. The dogs are better at receiving information than the handlers are at delivering it.