Thursday, November 5, 2009

Karen Pryor Academy Workshop 1 with Steve Benjamin and Casey Lomonaco

Last weekend, Hyedie, Duke, Petey, and I drove down to Endicott, New York for Workshop 1 in the Karen Pryor Academy. What a great experience! The class is small (5 students in total) and it was basically 16 hours of non stop learning. The work we did leading up to the workshop put me on a great learning path of self discovery, and the workshop helped drive things home for me and answer questions there were lingering.

Petey performed "Yummo-o" (tongue lick on cue), "Go to Bed", "Get in a Box" and a new trick "Hup" (Jump over my bended knee) like a champ for the class!

Here's a video of my work on Get in a Box. I finished shaping the behavior with Petey actually downing in the box, so that all you can see is the tip of his tail sticking out (in the video I hadn't finished shaping that last step)



Lastly, Petey received some free training during breaks from Casey Lomonaco, a KPA certified training partner and also an avid blogger/writer on web sites I've noted such as Dog Star Daily or Clickertraining.com, and is also the winner of the 2009 Dogwise APDT John Fisher essay award. Her blog articles are extremely well written and introduce new ideas. Here's an example:

Shoddy Clicker Training and the Importance of Premack

(Worth another blog post on it's own, but she introduces the premack principal here - something I've done instinctively, thinking it was a way to celebrate and honor Duke's hunting history by allowing him to drag me through bushes to try to find rabbits).

1 comment:

K Paris said...

I love your blog! The box video is priceless!!!!

Karen Pryor Academy..wow, must have been a thrill!

Have you ever followed Patricia McConnell? I follow her blogs and have found her books on behaviour and seminars priceless.

Susan Garrett is another shaping rockstar in agility. I went to a couple workshops this year and they left me with goosebumps on my arms.

I'll have to figure out a way to follow your blog if it's okay with you.

big hugs for your beagles!