Seminar Suggestions?

Aleron

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#1
Any suggestions for seminars that would be good to help "modernize" the agility training at a more traditionally based club? A friend of mine is trying very hard to reform a training club's agility program. The club's agility program is positive training based but more the Petsmart style of positive training, if that makes sense. There is not a great grasp at all of the possibilities there are in using positive training, just very basic give the dog a treat to reward him stuff. No working in drive, no making rewards fun and interesting, no thinking outside of the box on what is a reward, no grasp of shaping, etc. And still a lot of falling back to correction, people asking for more than the dog is trained for and getting frustrated when the dog isn't doing as well as they'd like and a lot of blaming the dog when things go wrong.

I actually had a long discussion with another agility person and a student of this club. The student was absolutely sure that her dog was not holding contacts in trials because she was "stubborn" and "needs to be shut down" and that no one else has a dog that is as high drive and hard to get to reliably perform contacts as her's is so no one could possibly help her. She's done everything right and it's the dog's fault that they are NQing for missed contacts because "she knows she can get away with it at trials". That is just one example and a fairly extreme one but the "I've done my training all right and my dog is just stubborn and knows better but is trying to get away with things at trials" mentality is pretty widespread among members.

Many of the agility students do obedience too and while rewards are used by most of the obedience instructors, most of the methods and classes are more traditional than not. It would be nice to have someone that could pull in some of the obedience crowd too...but that's probably asking for too much.

Denise Fenzi is not available, she was my first suggestion :)
 
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#2
Not to be a negative Nancy, but would the traditional training style people pay big $ to go to a seminar that vastly differs from their beliefs though? I find also that while people might go to a seminar, they often take nothing away from it and go on with their regular training.

There is pretty much an identical situation at the kennel club that I teach at. However, progress is being made here! Myself and a friend recently started offering a "new" stream of agility classes based on Trkman style training. We are starting everyone at foundations again, focusing on fast, fun, agility training. We've had a lot of success and are slowly pulling in more and more of the traditional people. We held a fun match yesterday, and I was surprised by how many people showed up to check it out with an open mind, I guess word is getting around.

Of course, there is always club politics, and we are waiting for the hammer to drop because we are taking people away from the old agility stream.
 

BostonBanker

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#3
I've been thrilled the two times I've been to Tracy Sklenar seminars, and I regularly troll the internet looking for more. Very positive with both the dogs and handlers (huge for me, I want to think the presenter adores my dog and I don't want to be made to feel like a failure), lots of discussion and work on getting the dogs prepared mentally and physically (willing to spend as much time as needed before you even get the leash off for your turn to get the dog amped and engaged and really ready), and incredibly well spoken and easy to understand. In my very limited seminar experience, she's also done the best job of working within the handlers comfort zone as far as their handling system and such, to help find what is going to work.
 

Aleron

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Not to be a negative Nancy, but would the traditional training style people pay big $ to go to a seminar that vastly differs from their beliefs though? I find also that while people might go to a seminar, they often take nothing away from it and go on with their regular training.
That is a valid concern for sure. They had Jane Killian twice and people did go to her seminars. The seminars are just going to be one piece of the puzzle so to speak. The agility class formats are all changing. People can no longer come from obedience class right into agility, they have to take a Foundation class that focuses on learning to motivate and work with their dogs through tricks, recall training, crate games, shaping, etc using clicker/marker training. So progress is being made at this place too and it would be nice to have some well known people come in for seminars that support the methods being used.

Also this club makes it very cheap for members to audit seminars, which is nice for exposing people who wouldn't normally go.

I've been thrilled the two times I've been to Tracy Sklenar seminars, and I regularly troll the internet looking for more. Very positive with both the dogs and handlers (huge for me, I want to think the presenter adores my dog and I don't want to be made to feel like a failure), lots of discussion and work on getting the dogs prepared mentally and physically (willing to spend as much time as needed before you even get the leash off for your turn to get the dog amped and engaged and really ready), and incredibly well spoken and easy to understand. In my very limited seminar experience, she's also done the best job of working within the handlers comfort zone as far as their handling system and such, to help find what is going to work.
Oh good to know! She is someone I suggested looking into, even though I'm not real familiar with her because I know she was a Say Yes instructor. My friend is a SG fan and mentioned she'd love to have SG come but feels she'd probably be too expensive (and she used to have a reputation for being kinda mean in person). So I suggested maybe a Say Yes instructor or past instructor might be an option. I sent your suggestion onto her :)
 

adojrts

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#5
My suggestion is Jessica Martin, very nice, teaches with clarity, trains the fun, run like hell Trkman style and is very approachable and likeable :)
She gives seminars/workshops all over N.A and has also done some in Europe. She is also very very good at sorting out issues.
 
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#6
My suggestion is Jessica Martin, very nice, teaches with clarity, trains the fun, run like hell Trkman style and is very approachable and likeable :)
She gives seminars/workshops all over N.A and has also done some in Europe. She is also very very good at sorting out issues.
I was going to suggest her as well, I wasn't sure how much she traveled/was available though. I have gone to a seminar of her's and thoroughly enjoyed it.
 

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