You’re a professional dog trainer or veterinary staff member. Maybe you’re self-employed or maybe you work at a training school, a veterinary clinic or an animal shelter. You’ve taken lots of classes and attended conferences to gain a better understanding of the science of learning. If you’re lucky, you’ve had excellent mentors teach you the physical skills – the “chops” – of training. You’re working in your dream job. And yet…why do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to be a barista instead? Our work as trainers or veterinary professionals can be relentless, exhausting and heart-breaking. Clients often hire us to “fix” a pet’s destructive or dangerous behavior, after intervening in ways that unwittingly made the problem worse. We need to empathize with our clients’ disappointment and frustration while teaching new habits, knowing the pet’s life might be at risk. And because dog training is such an unregulated profession in much of the world, we likely work amidst other trainers who lack a solid foundation in education, experience or ethics. We find ourselves vacillating between wanting to “out” them and being demoralized by their slick marketing efforts. Given this, how can we keep doing our work, with both skill & joy? You already know how to teach a dog how to do a long-duration behavior (e.g., a down-stay). We’ll examine familiar training principles (frequent, varied, well-timed reinforcement; minimization of pain & pressure; agency) as they apply to our own long-duration professional behaviors.

Sponsor:dog-ibox.com
Speaker(s):Kathy Sdao

Contact:
 Web: http://www.dog-ibox.com/