It was announced this afternoon that Dr. Sophia Yin has passed away. We are overwhelmed with shock and sadness as we process this news. She has played a critical role in the modernization of dog training. Her Facebook profile shared this picture to announce this unfortunate news:
Over the years, she has been a strong role model for veterinarians and dog trainers alike. She shared her knowledge and skills with thousands of teachers both in person and online. There is no doubt she increased the quality of life of many, many animals through the demonstration of her veterinary handling videos and resources.
She will be dearly missed and will never be forgotten.
The APDT offers a fun and challenging CLASS curriculum for new pet owners.
The Association of Professional Dog Trainers is the leading organization for professional dog trainers in North America. They offer a wonderful program for trainers to get involved with local rescues as well as increase their income by teaching a specific kind of class. Canine Life and Social Skills (CLASS) is targeted towards shelter dogs who need to build their life skills and social skills to successfully get adopted or stay adopted. Becoming a CLASS Instructor & Evaluator is a great way to set yourself apart from your competition.
Becoming an Instructor
To become a CLASS instructor simply sign up for an account. Once you’ve registered, you have access to the CLASS curriculum so that you can easily begin teaching. The APDT also supplies advertising materials so you can help clients or potential clients learn about the CLASS program. CLASS for shelter dogs is a great program to use if you want to begin a relationship with your local rescue or shelter.
Certification for Evaluators
To become certified as a CLASS Evaluator you’ll need to pass a video exam, be the minimum age of 21, have at least 60 hours of training experience, and maintain liability insurance either through the company you work for or through your own business. The cost is only $40 to become certified. Once your students complete the CLASS curriculum in class, being certified allows you the possibility to graduate your clients and help them become certified as well! Getting their dog certified is a fun way to encourage excellence in pet ownership and responsibility.
Dominance in dogs is something that is constantly debated among dog trainers.
Recent research suggests that dominance should simply be used to describe one animals relationship with another and not as a type of behavior. Conflict resolution is something that all animals must come to terms with in order to survive. Injuries caused by unnecessary fighting between individuals of the same species is detrimental to the species survival. Dominance and submission relationships are critical to keeping peace between members of the same family. Click HERE for a link to the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior Position Statements on Dominance.
David Mech, the original researcher who coined the term “alpha,” now retracts his statement about wolf packs competing for alpha status. He now states that wolf packs are similar to families. The “alphas” are usually the parents and the subordinates are offspring. Dominance is simply a matter of “respecting your elders.”
Dominance Is Expressed To Keep Possession Over Resources
When one dog has possession of a resource such as food, a mate, water, or comfort, they can express their dominance over other animals to keep that resource. Keeping possession over resources is a critical survival skill that is necessary to all animals. If an animal is unable to keep possession, then they will likely perish or go through severe hardships. Unfortunately, just because a dog is now usually located in a home with ample resources doesn’t mean they will stop guarding their possessions. Clients often fail to understand this and are quick to label their dogs as dominant or submissive when conflicts occur.
How do you explain dominance to your clients? Share in the comments below.
Here’s our favorite explanation to the common question: What is clicker training?
Clients always ask: What is clicker training? Even if they don’t ask, what they think they know may be incorrect or incomplete. This video by Kristin Crestejo is our favorite video explanation of what clicker training is and how to use it to train animals.
Clicker training is a wonderful training method that precisely identifies what behavior the animal performed that earned them the reward they were working for. This allows them to acquire the behavior accurately, quickly, and with great enthusiasm. The clicker is simply a piece of metal that makes a “click” sound when you press it with your thumb. The click should always be followed by a reward that the animal values. Clicker training is used worldwide to train zoo animals, wildlife for military operations, and top performance competition champions. Fortunately, it is easily applied to the needs of the common owner and their dogs.
Using food in training is your best option to create social, confident, and obedient dogs for your clients.
Many modern dog trainers utilize food in training. While food is an incredibly practical way to motivate dogs, it serves another important functions when it comes to the dog’s confidence. Simply put, food has the power to change how an animals feels about certain situations.
In the article “Preventative Counterconditioning…because bad stuff happens” by Awesome Dogs, the trainer uses an unexpected life event as a chance to countercondition her dogs before they get a chance to make an emotional connection to the situation. Her neighbors were having a huge and loud party and she took the opportunity to feed her dogs chicken. This ensured that the dogs made a good, positive association with the experience before they could decide for themselves.
Proper Socialization
Proper socialization should occur in this manner as well. Its important to help the puppy learn about their environment and teach them that the world is a fun a safe place. Socialization will occur either way so you need to step in and make sure they are creating positive connections with their discoveries by using food in training. In other words, this is also a form of “preventative counterconditioning.”
Chicken Is Powerful
Food has the power to change a dog’s emotional reaction towards stimuli (people, dogs, and other possibly scary things). It is easily deliverable to the dog’s mouth as they observe their environment which makes it an ideal tool to use in training. Granted the dog is not over threshold and too close to their feared trigger, food can help teach a dog new behaviors while creating positive associations and connections in their brains. Just like when people eat their favorite comfort foods, those “feel good” chemicals called endorphins are released in the brain. That warm fuzzy feeling is then paired with the dog’s trigger to make a new connection – “that scary thing makes awesome stuff happen, maybe it isn’t quite so scary anymore!” Basically, food has the power to make the world less scary for any dog.
Breaking down dog-dog play is an important part of teaching dog training and socialization classes.
In this video, Donna Hill narrates two dogs playing together. She helps us identify what dog play body language is occurring.
These two dogs demonstrate appropriate and reciprocal dog-dog play. The narration describes what is occurring as it happens. Rolling over, initiating play, and chase should be reciprocated by each dog. If one dog is doing most of the chasing or tackling, the pair maybe an uneven match and one dog may be bullying the other. The most important thing to remember is that each dog should take turns reciprocating the play and breaks should be taken frequently. Intervene using only positive interrupter to keep the interactions fun and upbeat while initiating breaks for the dogs.
Dominance in dogs is something that is constantly debated among dog trainers.
Here’s our favorite explanation to the common question: What is clicker training?
Breaking down dog-dog play is an important part of teaching dog training and socialization classes.