Dr. Reid to describe the story behind the exciting research that demonstrates that dogs, like children, can learn that certain words represent individual objects, and other words represent categories of objects, independent in meaning of what they are asked to do with those objects.

Register HERE:  https://e-trainingfordogs.com/2011/03/ethology-and-canine-behaviour-series/

Press Releases:
PitEngine
PR.com-Dr. Alliston Reid Discusses the Science Underlying Chaser, the Border Collie Who Knows the Names of 1,022 Objects, in Online Webinar Brought to You by E-Training for Dogs

May 25, 2012 – Windsor, CO – E-Training for Dogs, the most extensive online dog training educational site on the Internet and provider of a wide selection of webinars for the dog owner, dog trainer, breeder and canine enthusiast, will hold an online webinar featuring Dr. Alliston Reid, who will share the rigorous science underlying the story of Chaser, the Border Collie, who knows the names of 1,022 objects, on (June 7, 2012 at 6 PM EST). NOTE: This webinar will be recorded and available for viewing OnDemand anytime after the Live lecture.

The research with Chaser, by Dr. John Pilley and Dr. Alliston Reid, has received worldwide attention this past year. Chaser’s incredible language abilities have been featured in a wide variety of news outlets around the World and are demonstrated on NOVA ScienceNOW where Dr. Neil Tyson tested Chaser’s knowledge of 1022 names of objects.

The webinar will feature, Dr. Alliston Reid describing the story behind the exciting research (published in the journal Behavioural Processes)  that demonstrates that dogs, like children, can learn that certain words represent individual objects, and other words represent categories of objects, independent in meaning of what they are asked to do with those objects.

About Alliston K. Reid, Ph.D.  Dr. Reid received his B. S. degree from WoffordCollegein 1975 with a major in psychology. As a student, he was passionately involved in research in experimental psychology and neuropsychology, working closely with Dr. Pilley and Dr. Scott on several research projects. Dr. Reid received his Ph.D. degree from DukeUniversityin experimental psychology with a minor in zoology. He came to WoffordCollegein 1996 when his favorite mentor, Dr. John Pilley, decided to retire. Dr. Reid served as chairman of the psychology department from 1998 to 2004. At Wofford, Dr. Reid was awarded the Governor’s Distinguished Professor Award by Governor Mark Sanford in 2004. At graduation in May 2005, Dr. Reid was awarded the Roger Milliken Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Science, which provides $50,000 over a ten-year period to promote faculty development. For three years, he served as Program Chair for the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior (SQAB) and special editor of the journal, Behavioural Processes, which publishes the proceedings of the SQAB conference as a special issue each year. Currently, Dr. Reid serves as President of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior. In 2010 Dr. Reid was appointed Reeves Family Professor of Psychology due to the continued generosity of Ed Reeves and his family.

The Pet Loss Companioning course at E-Training for Dogs is our newest offering in quality and informative webinars.

This is an 8 session webinar course co-taught by Coleen Ellis and Joe Dwyer. Each lesson is in lecture format designed to provide real steps and actions that will teach the student how to help others, or yourself, through the loss of a beloved pet.

As more and more people are acknowledging that their pets are more than just animals and that they are members of the family, they are demanding the same types of services that we would want and expect of our human family members.  While Pet Parents did all they could for their furry children during life, they also want to make sure that the same can be said in death.  Furthermore, they will feel comforted in knowing that, most of all, their feelings of grief are validated.  As Pet Care Professionals, while it’s our responsibility to help pet parents with the loss of their pet, it’s also an area that many people are uncomfortable with.  In the eight Pet Loss Companioning webinars, many different aspects of death and grief are explored as the attendees learn the intricacies of one of life’s inevitable events.

In the eight Pet Loss Companioning webinars, many different aspects of death
and grief are explored as the attendees learn the intricacies of one of life’s inevitable events: Death.

Each session will consist of a lecture, a quiz, and reflection homework that helps the student to absorb the material. This course is OnDemand (available at any time for the student’s participation).

To learn more and to register, go HERE.

This course is co-taught by Coleen Ellis, the first awardee of the Death and Grief Studies Certification specializing in Pet Loss Companioning by Dr. Alan Wolfelt at Colorado State University and Joe Dwyer, a graduate of Emerson Theological Institute as a certified Animal Chaplain and pet parent of Daniel, the Beagle who survived the gas chamber.

RACE CEU credits available.
CCPDT and IAABC CEU’s pending

A new class released, Thinking Like a Dog Trainer-Part I, is a well-organized, clearly written course designed to help the dog trainer understand the language used to describe the theory behind operant learning (learning theory) and, most importantly, how to recognize what they are seeing when they observe behavior during training.

Dog trainers, no matter which method they use, all have the intention of either teaching a new skill to a dog, or changing/shaping a behavior already in place. The concepts, theories and terminology are a common discussion amongst trainers. Terms are tossed around on a regular basis, yet, not everyone will agree on their definitions, much less be able to identify them when they see them. How important is it to be able to understand the theories of learning and when and when not to use them? My opinion is that it is very important!

Take a scenario:
A 6 month old Spinone Italiano is learning to point birds. She points whenever she makes scent in the field. When her owner sees her point, she starts walking toward where the pup is pointing to flush the bird. As soon as the Spinone notices the owner coming up, she races in and flushes the bird herself. The owner wants her to stay pointing (steady) until the owner flushes the bird. So, the owner takes the puppy home and rewards her for standing and remaining on a wooden platform in the yard. She ups the difficulty daily by making it harder to stay on the platform by moving further away, throwing favorite toys at varying distances from the puppy and always treating when the Spin stays on the board. Eventually she even takes a bird out into the yard, far away at first, moving closer, and eventually flushes it and it flies away… the Spin is rewarded for staying on that board, even in the presence of a bird. Now she takes her out to the field, first with the board and a “set up” bird. Then in the field taking the board away and the Spin now stays on point even through the flush of the bird. What is happening here? What are the theories, concepts, and terms that went into such a plan of shaping behavior/learning this new skill of “steady through the flush?” All of this is without even touching the dog.  See if you can identify the following in the above scenario.  Which ones are or are not being used in this plan? Do you have enough information to correctly respond to each of the below?

• Was Operant or Classical Conditioning used? Or both?

  

  Brasch Pointing-Photo courtesy Ann Bagnell

• Who is the trainer(s)?
• Who is the learner?
• Was positive reinforcement used and when?
• Was negative reinforcement used and when?
• Was positive punishment used and when?
• Was negative punishment used and when?
• Was extinction used and when?
• What is the primary and secondary reinforcer (if any)?
• Was capturing used?
• Was differential reinforecment used?

Could you do it? The Thinking Like a Dog Trainer course will teach you how to do this correctly. It is not easy. However, these concepts are important to understand and to, most importantly, recognize when you should or should not apply or use them. Many people do not even know how to recognize them even when they are doing them. “Thinking Like a Dog Trainer” and understanding when and why certain theories should be, or are implemented (or not) is the foundation for good dog trainers and in creating a behavior change/new skill with reliability and no negative unintended consequences. Check out the “Thinking Like a Trainer” course taught by Sue Alexander, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KSA, CABC.

As usual, this course is available “OnDemand” and 100% online. It is about two hours in length (depending on how fast the learner “learns”) and taught by Sue Alexander, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KSA, CABC. It has our typical rich mode of delivery using lecture, video demonstrations, quizzes, and a written assignment. Thinking Like a Dog Trainer-Part 2 (coming soon) will take the definitions and understanding learned in Part 1 and have the student apply operant theory to their training plan and make their training more effective and efficient.

Research In Dog Training

E-Training for Dogs is founded by a previous university professor and has a unique following/clientele of dog enthusiasts, breeders, and professionals. Most of our students are hungry for MORE information, BETTER information, so they can become better trainers and other canine professionals. As such, one of our most popular series is our Ethology and Canine Behavior Lecture Series. This series is presented “Live” online the first Thursday of every month from 8:00-9:30 PM EST. The Live lecture is about 60 minutes in length and 30 minutes is allowed for a question and answer session at the end with the Speaker. It is also recorded so those who cannot view it can attend it “ondemand” at a later time or date. This month’s (January 5, 2012) Lecture is titled: Research in Dog Training: Current Projects and Future Directions Speaker Nicole Dorey, Ph.D.

So, why should dog trainers care about “Research” anyways?

Well, in general, research should inform practice. What does that mean?

• It means that when someone does research it should be able to be applied to a real world “question.”
• It means that you KNOW that if you do “this” then “that” will happen.
• It means that you KNOW that if you increase or decrease “this” then “that” will increase or decrease.
• It means that you KNOW that if you change the amount of doing “this” then “that” will change in a certain amount.
• It means that though our non-“research” ways of “knowing” are valuable (typically based on experience, observation, experiment, values or ethics) ….chances are we might be wrong.

Of course… experience, observation, values, and ethics are very important. In addition, sometimes research is just silly and not useful…it does NOT inform practice. However, unless someone actually researches the variables of behavior and behavior change, we really are making best guesses. Fortunately, there are canine professionals doing more and more research all the time on those variables.

Dr. Nicole Dorey is one of these researchers. As a graduate student at the University of North Texas, Nicole became interested in animal training and specifically decreasing problem behavior in animals. One of her first endeavors was an olive baboon that was engaging in self injurious behavior which caused huge lacerations on its arms and legs. With Nicole’s knowledge of behavior analysis, her first thought was to see what was maintaining the baboon’s problem behavior and to conduct a functional analysis. From the data collected with this method, she was able to eliminate the self injurious behavior and found that the cause of the problem was the keepers telling the baboon to “stop doing that” that was acting as attention and increasing the self injurious behavior. This was the first time this method had been used with an animal and has since been used to determine the maintaining variable of self injurious behavior in other captive primate species. After this project, Nicole was hooked. Although her Ph.D. at the University of Exeter was focused on investigating social learning in a variety of zoo animals and dogs, in her spare time she consulted on training and decreasing problem behavior at the Paignton Zoo and successfully co-organized a zoo training workshop. Her recent research focuses on developing a line of research that will serve the dog training community and seek to find a deeper understanding of the factors that underlie problem behavior.

Researching what method works best and when and with this or that dog, in this or that situation, etc. is not going to be the answer to ALL questions, but it will INFORM us. These are exciting times for canine professionals as they hunger for the RIGHT answers and demand the proof is now. Come join us ONLINE to find out what the cutting edge research is saying. A recording of this lecture will be available ondemand. You can get it HERE.

Awareness > Attention > Learning > Behavior

To elicit a behavior from a dog, the dog has to first be aware of a cue or some stimulus, pay attention to it, learn it and then DO it.

This is the general order of how all learning occurs.

In the world of dog training and canine behaviorists, especially as it relates to trying to teach a dog a new or different behavior, the study of the “distracted dog” is the probable equivalent to the human behaviorists study of “attention.”

Attention and distraction are, obviously, inextricably interwoven psychological phenomenon. To a “distracted dog” two things in the realm of “attention” are happening…

1. He is not paying attention to something that the human may be wanting him to pay attention to, and

2. He is paying attention to something(s) that are distracting him.

For the dog trainer and the canine behaviorist, it is important to work with the dog to encourage him to be able to “pay attention” even through distractions…especially for a working dog or a dog competing in a sport.

Attention is usually seen as having two components: (1) direction (what the attention is on) and (2) intensity (how much mental effort goes into it).

What are some of the factors that should be considered when working with a distracted dog and trying to get him to pay “attention?”

Salience Dogs, like people, can pay attention to more than one thing in their environment and NOT give equal attention to each of those things. For example, a dog in a show ring may be focusing on the liver treat in the handler’s hands, but he is also aware of the dog in front of him, behind him, the dog outside the ring playing with another dog, the people, the flooring, the smells of the hotdogs in the concession stand, etc. BUT he may be paying MORE attention to that piece of food than any of those other stimuli as it, RELATIVE to these other stimuli, has more salience to him. What if the last time the dog was in a show ring, the judge accidentally stepped on his paw, would he find the judge more salient than the liver treat and become distracted by the judge?

Vividness is related to salience, but whereas salience is determined by the relation of paying attention to one object as it relates to all the other objects/stimuli in the environment, VIVIDNESS is inherent in the stimulus itself. What if a dog comes to class and a Pudelpointer (no offense anyone!) attacks him. A Pudelpointer is a dog with a bearded face. So this dog that was attacked by a bearded dog, now is easily distracted when any other bearded dog is near him. It is both salient and vivid to him. The main difference between SALIENT and VIVID is that VIVID information, according to the research, is more easily recalled.

So getting a dog, who is distracted, to pay attention, it may be useful to think about the following:

• What is distracting the dog?/What is the dog paying attention to?
• How distracted is the dog?/How much attention is the dog paying to the thing that is distracting him?
• How salient, relative to all the other things going on, is the distraction (the thing he is paying the most attention to?)
• How vivid is the distraction (the thing he is paying the most attention to?
• Knowing the above, how can you make the distracted dog pay attention using the concepts of salience and vividness?

We have an excellent webinar to help you if you have a distracted dog and want to find ways to get him to pay attention to you:
The Distracted Dog

Here is a sample video from the 60 minute, ondemand class-

The Attention Exercise

Renea Dahms, DipCBST, RMT, an early childhood educator and dog trainer in North Central Wisconsin since 1995, specializes in helping people work with getting their dogs’ attention…Distracted Dogs. She has developed a very down to earth, easy to understand, easy to apply, webinar for us called: The Distracted Dog.