Videoverslag van workshop Ian Dunbar in Antwerpen (complete weekend) : Reliability Workshop

Dogs are fine discriminators and learn very differently from people; if you train them indoors, they behave indoors but often fail to respond to commands on walks and when off-leash. However, reliability problems that occur in real life (at home or on walks), or in competition, may be detected and resolved in a workshop format. Response-Reliability depends very much on comprehension, motivation and reinforcement. Owners mayassess what their dog does or does not understand and how quickly it is learning by repeatedly quantifying the reliability, speed and precision of their dog's responses toverbal instructions and hand-signals. The dog's actual level of training or reliability is not that important. What is important though, is that owners know the precise degree of control that they have over their dogs. Knowing your dog's level of comprehension is important so that you do not become frustrated (and blame your dog) for poor performance. Instead, poor responses should prompt owners to re-evaluate their training techniques and maximise improvement via a three-step process of Test – Train – Test:
1. Establishing a behavior baseline by quantifying response reliability, speed or precision
2. Setting realistic and progressive Criteria for long-term training Goals plus Motivation and Differential Reinforcement to improve the reliability and quality of performance.
3. Re-testing to ascertain the effectiveness of training.

Saturday 1 september: Games for Motivation, Reliability, Speed and Precision
Games are extremely enjoyable for dogs, owners and observers alike and they generally bring out extraordinary performances and further motivate dogs and owners to perform even better. Additionally, playing games is a non-threatening way to objectively assess and improve the reliability and quality of performance by prompting owner-compliance and encouraging owners to practice.
Playing games accelerates the speed of learning. Also, the prospect of competition motivates owners to practice. Playing games is an enjoyable and non-threatening way to objectively quantify performance and fine-tune all basic obedience skills, including attention, position changes, stays, following, heeling, and precision work.

Sunday 2 september: K9 GAMES® Workshop
A day of fun and games. All dogs and their owners may compete in Musical Chairs and the Doggy Dash. All participants will get a chance to practice the other games — Joe Pup Relay, Recall Relay, Woof Relay, Distance Catch, Take and Drop, Kong Retrieval, and Waltzes with dogs and the best performers are invited to compete.

Organisation: www.Alldog.be