Short Courses

Essential Exercises for the Engaged Dog

Essential Exercises for the Engaged Dog

I am a firm believer in a good foundation. If you don’t have it and are merely training “exercises” and “positions,” you will fall short. Just when you need your dog to be dependable, the behaviour fails.

This FREE short course covers the behaviours that I think are the Foundation of all else. Once these behaviours are on board, you can build anything on top of them you like. It benefits ALL performance dogs, working dogs and pets, too.

HOW you train these behaviours is just as important as WHICH behaviours.

Join Me!

This short course includes 90 minutes of video and a Q&A Call.
Cost: FREE

Q&A Call: Friday, Apr 17, 2020 12 noon, Eastern Time (US and Canada), 11am Central Time, 10am Mountain Time, 9am Pacific Time

Length of Access to Short Course: 1 month

No enrollment necessary.  You have access now to all the lessons and the Q&A Call! (If you enroll after the Q&A Call date, you will be able to listen to a recording of the call).

This Short Course Covers These Topics:

• What are those Essential Exercises?
• What is an Engaged Dog?
• Why is attention so important?
• Impulse Control
• Body Work
• I answer your student questions during the Q&A Call

Introducing a New Puppy to the Resident Adult Dog

Introducing a New Puppy to the Resident Adult Dog

Introducing your puppy to your resident dog can be wonderful - or frightening and end in injury or trauma for the puppy - the resident dog and/or you!

My clients, Marguerite and Dave, have just gotten a new puppy and will be bringing it home soon. We arranged with the breeder for a field trip, so we could introduce new baby to Resident Older Dog, Wyndsor.

We discuss:

• Restraint Tolerance
• Nail clipping
• How to read the body language of puppy and resident adult dog
• What we do to introduce puppy to adult so stress is minimal for them & us ; )

Watch Dogs Meet Up ... Brenda-Style

That is just the beginning. Use my protocols to make sure dogs are socially-enhanced, instead of a free-for-all and hope-for-the-best scenario.

This short course includes:

• 2 1/4 hours of informative video
• 17 minutes of audio
• Downloadable Handout

Cost: $74.95

Length of Access to Short Course: 1 month

Q&A Call! May 16, 2020, Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time, 11AM Central Time, 10AM Mountain Time, 9AM Pacific Time

If you enroll after the Q&A Call date, no worries. You will be able to listen to a recording of the call, so you don’t have to miss the fun!

Enroll Now - Introducing a New Puppy to the Resident Adult Dog

This Short Course Covers These Topics

• You get a good dose of learning how to read the body language and several different reactions, so you can educate yourself and feel prepared and ready to be a success!
• When you can read the dog’s body language skillfully and look in an educated way for Intention Behaviour…well, that just makes all the difference. Here is a variety of videos, of dogs meeting other dogs, that will begin or enhance your education.
• Resident Adult meeting Adolescent Intact Male Rescue
• Introducing a puppy to a resident adult that has fights with a different house-mate
• Audio File: Why Not Just Let Them Work It Out?
• Learn about dog greeting rituals and body language
• My Border Collie, Rylie, was one of the best socialized and most neutral dogs you will ever meet. Watch her handle a a couple of mannerless puppies. Learn how to read how rude and pushy puppies operate. (Yup. that would be all of them. LOL)
• Manufacture an Arced Approach - It is how friendly dogs would do it…
• Introducing 2 Young Adult dogs, neither one of whom has great social skills
• Watch two puppies, one a bit fearful and one bold - learn to play together on a play date. We get to see examples of role changes, caution and play

Reinforcement Magic

Reinforcement Magic

• Do you wonder why you work and work and still don’t seem to be getting through to your dog? I want RELIABILITY!
• Ever been told your timing needs work?
• Do you get stuck in Acquisition and it seems like all you are doing is stuffing cookies in your dog’s face without the stupendous result promised by using treats to train? When does this behaviour hold up and become reliable?
• What does a dog need to understand in Acquisition and how do I get that to a behaviour that is easy to maintain and dependable?
• Every time you take your dog to a new location or context, do your behaviours disintegrate before your eyes or even explode with a big bang right in front of you?
• The great majority of our training time is spent in Generalization, but what should I be doing there to make it work better? My training is great at home and where I take regular lessons. Why do my behaviours fail when I take them to a new place? Frustrating!

I can help!

Join me for in this short course that takes a few twists and turns into all sorts of dog training and behaviour tangents…because to me, a good clinic answers questions that students bring.

This webinar includes 106 minutes of video, downloadable handouts, and a Q&A Call.
Cost: $49.95

Length of Access to Short Course: 1 month

Q&A Call: April 28, 2020, Friday at 7pm Eastern Time, 6pm Central Time, 5pm Mountain Time, 4pm Pacific Time

(If you enroll after the Q&A Call date, you will be able to listen to a recording of the call)

Enroll Now- Reinforcement Magic

This Short Course Covers These Topics:

• The four stages every behaviour goes through - predictably
• How to identify each learning stage as you develop a behaviour
• How to improve your timing - because your problem isn’t timing…
• Using Reinforcement Schedules like a virtuoso!
• How to make a behaviour strong
• How to make a behaviour resistant to failure
• When should I be using a cookie - and when not?
• Some discussion of distracted or reactive dogs and current trends in working with them. My take on what we SHOULD be doing.
• Preventing backchaining with the timing of your reinforcer
• Desensitizing vs Sensitizing
• Be Still Cue
• Desensitization - watch as students & I Role Play the process
• Patterns - Why are they important?
• Environmental Cueing
• Comfort, Stretch & Panic Zones and how learning takes place in each Zone
• Using Food Thoughtfully
• Using Space as Conversation
• Motivation Systems that serve as Intrinsic Reinforcers - don’t just get stuck using treats & toys. Expand your repertoire
• Leash Pulling and the mental effect on the dog
• Dogs, Morality and your training

Respect, Love and Trust Travel as Companions

Respect, Love & Trust

Old fashioned words. Not very scientific sounding. And yet, we know, instinctively that these words matter. In every relationship. When we are working hard to get our dogs to “partner up’ with us, science can take us far.

The trick is to change that Science into Art. That is the real skill set of dog training ... taking messy emotions and adding the science, mixing it with the real world and including emotional states and ... turning that unpredictable melee into the Art of Training.

I can help!

This short course includes 77 minutes of video, downloadable handouts, and a Q&A Call.
Cost: $24.95

Length of Access to Short Course: 1 month

Q&A Call: April 25, 2020, Saturday at 11:00 AM Eastern Time, 10AM Central Time, 9AM Mountain Time, 8AM Pacific Time

(If you enroll after the Q&A Call date, you will be able to listen to a recording of the call)

Enroll Now - Respect, Love and Trust Travel as Companions

This Short Course Covers These Topics:

• Some discussion of distracted or reactive dogs and current trends in working with them. My take on what we SHOULD be doing.
• Preventing backchaining with the timing of your reinforcer
• Desensitizing vs Sensitizing
• Be Still Cue
• Desensitization - watch as students & I Role Play the process
• Patterns
• Environmental Cueing
• Comfort, Stretch & Panic Zones and how learning takes place in each Zone
• Using Food Thoughtfully
• Using Space as Conversation
• Motivation Systems that serve as Intrinsic Reinforcers - don’t just get stuck using treats & toys. Expand your repertoire
• Leash Pulling and the mental effect on the dog
• Dogs, Morality and your training

Why Restraint Tolerance?

Why Restraint Tolerance?

When I was teaching lots of entry level classes, and there have been many (thousands, between group classes and private lessons) over the last 30+ years, I felt that Restraint Tolerance was the MOST important thing to teach.

When I query my instructors, they validate my own experiences. When we poll our entry level attendees, what do they often list as the most valuable thing we taught them? Yup. Restraint Tolerance.

This short course includes:

• 140 minutes of of informative and real timevideo
• A downloadable handout
• 18 minutes of audio
• Q&A Call.

Cost: $74.95

Length of Access to Short Course: 1 month

Q&A Call with Brenda

The Q&A Call is set for June 13, 2020, Saturday, at 11AM Eastern Time (USA and Canada),10AM Central Time, 9AM Mountain Time, 8AM Pacific Time

If you enroll after the Q&A Call date, no worries. You will be able to listen to a recording of the call, so you don’t have to miss the fun!

Enroll Now - Why Restraint Tolerance?

This Short Course Covers These Topics

In my training system, there are 3 specific protocols for Body Work that we deem Foundational:

1. Sit Restraint
2. Down Restraint
3. Be Still

Both sit restraint and be still can be used interchangeably to help improve greetings.  

This material covers primarily the Sit Restraint protocol. Down Restraint and Be Still are taught separately. Sit Restraint is typically the easiest to teach the dog. Use it for these occasions:

• Greetings
• Puppy Mouthing
• Bossy Biting
• Calming an Aroused Dog
• Containing an energetic dog
• Introducing a Worried Puppy to other dogs

As always, the first lesson of my course is free. Hope you'll join us for the full short course!

If you wish to explore the other Body Work protocols, you can find material in any one of my books.  For example, the "Be Still" is covered in both Get Connected With Your Dog and Puppy Problems? No Problem!