Companion Animal Sciences Institute

Course Title: Applied Operant Conditioning Workshop - 206 

Credits: 1

Instructor: James O'Heare, CABC

Course Description

Training a dog is a physical skill.  Hone your mechanical skills and timing by enrolling in this highly practical, applied course!  See first hand how operant conditioning works in the real world in real time.

In this course students will apply the principles of behavior, and the techniques of dog training learned in previous courses to address a complex training task. The training task will involve training a dog to target with a nose or paw touch a specific object on cue in the presence of two objects and then extinguish the targeting, while differentially reinforcing targeting of the other object, followed by generalizing the performance to different settings to meet specific response criteria. The assignment will involve reporting on the training process to demonstrate insights and proper application of principles and techniques. The assignment is not graded based on whether you meet the criteria but rather the demonstration of insights/learning from the experience and on understanding of concepts and terminology in learning and training.

You may find a product called the Touch It, available throughhttp://www.nosetouch.com valuable in this and other targeting training tasks.

Students should emerge from this course with a foundationalunderstanding of:

• Application of principles of learning and training techniques
• Planning for complex training tasks
• Reinforcer delivery 
• Timing 
• Clicker principles 
• Fluidity in training 
• Flexibility in training 
• Goal oriented training objectives
• Communicating about training tasks

Course Texts

Recommended but not required:

• Getting Started Clicker Training For Dogs by Karen Pryor
  

Enrollment Package Includes

• Coursework document with assignments and course notes
• Student Handbook
• Access to Classroom, with transcripts from Guest Visits and handouts
• Free membership with IIACAB and to all issues of its journal JACAB
• Access to your Instructor for one-on-one guidance

Schedule

The course begins as soon as your enrollment is complete and you receive your enrollment package. Although we allow 2 months for this course, you are free to complete the course sooner if you can, and we do allow extensions if need be.

Prerequisites

Principles of Learning and Behavior 104
Dog Training Technology 105
Exceptions may be made. Contact us.
Prerequisites waived for CPDTs and CDBCs.

CCPDT Credits: 16.5

Tuition

$150 Cdn. (Currency Converter) + 4% fee for for online payments. Textbooks not included in tuition. They may be purchased through http://www.dogwise.com, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.abebooks.com or http://www.half.com in most cases. Also check the Student Library. Canadian Residents 5% GST.

Enrollment

Visit the "ENROLL" page and follow the application instructions.