The Professional Dog Training Science and Technology program is a rigorous program of study intended to help the students upgrade and develop important skills for their careers in dog training. It involves an intensive distance course on the principles of learning and the technology of dog training with both academic coursework and hands on skill practice and involves hands on workshops in shaping and chaining techniques.
This is not a cursory and basic program of study but rather an in-depth and challenging educational experience. Students can expect to do a lot of studying and writing as well as actually working with their own dog, hands-on, in this program, exploring the various topics in depth.
The graduate would be awarded a Professional Dog Training Science and Technology Certificate and allowed the letters Cert.PDTST after their name. Graduates may go on to attend an internship with an industry leading professional. See our Internship page for more information.
This program requires approximately 200 work-hours; 26 hours in actual assignment preparation.
Courses:
Learning Objectives:
- Describe the assumptions of the natural science of behavior, and distinguish this approach to behavior from others: psychology, ethology and the medical model orientation
- Define, contract and compare sensitization and habituation
- Define, contrast and compare operant and respondent behaviors as well as operant and respondent conditioning
- Define key terms utilized in the science of behavior
- Describe the Law of Effect
- Define and relate the 5 basic principles of operant conditioning: Extinction, +R, +P, -R, -P
- Describe the 3-term contingency and relationships between each of the terms
- Identify and describe variables affecting operant conditioning
- Describe respondent conditioning and the four basic respondent conditioning procedures (i.e., trace, delayed, simultaneous, backward)
- Describe respondent extinction
- Identify and describe variables affecting respondent conditioning
- Define, contrast and compare conditioned and unconditioned reinforcers
- Describe the problematic secondary effects of aversive stimulation
- Define and discuss learned helplessness
- Define the compound procedure differential reinforcement, including different types, and explain how it can be utilized as an alternative to aversive control of behavior
- Identify the basic schedules of reinforcement and describe their effects on the rate or frequency of behavior
- Define, contrast and compare generalization and discrimination
- Define stimulus control and explain how it is transferred
- Contrast and compare the behavioral perspective on behavior with the ethological, psychological and medical model orientation
- Explain the process of biological evolution and outline the primary hypotheses regarding the speciation of the domestic dog
- Define and explain the notion of the human-dog bond
- Define and explain the notion of social behavior and a function based model
- Identify and describe the sensitive periods of the domestic dog
- Identify and describe the basic breed categories and their behavior tendencies
- Analyze problem behaviors via the principles of behavior and the contingencies they are a part of rather than with diagnostic labels and generalizations
- Discuss common problem dog behaviors including aggressive behaviors, separation distress behaviors, barking, digging, undesirable attention seeking, feces eating, voiding in the house and jumping up including common functions for these behaviors
- Explain how to choose, establish and utilize a conditioned reinforcer
- Define target behaviors and training objectives
- Define prompts and explain when they might be appropriate and inappropriate
- Explain why it is important to fade prompts quickly and how to fade prompts
- Explain why physical prompts are often counterproductive
- Explain how to transfer stimulus control
- Explain, under which conditions shaping, chaining or simple differential reinforcement would be an appropriate procedure
- Apply the principles of behavior and training strategies and tactics to training animals to perform common behaviors, such as: either walking on a loose leash, come when called and sit for dogs, or step up, come when called and target objects for parrots, or come when called and walking on leash for cats.
- Carry out a shaping program for one's own companion animal, analyze results and identify problem areas and likely solutions
- Carry out a behavior chaining program for one's own companion animal, analyze results and identify problem areas and likely solutions
- Carry out the Training Game with friends or family members, analyze results and identify problem areas and likely solutions
- Develop and implement a formal training plan
- Generalize performance to new environments
- Effectively deliver reinforcers
- Analyze one's own training programs and identify ways to improve training performance
- Communicate effectively about training tasks
- Define behavior chaining and explain the behavior chaining process
- Contrast and compare total task chaining, forward chaining and backward chaining
- Differentiate between chaining (single trainer delivered cue) and "sequencing" (in-chain cues producing a series of separate chains)
- Dog training equipment and its proper and improper use.
- Identify potential liability problems and how to avoid them
- Outline a basic structure for working through behavior cases
- Produce a service agreement document to be used in professional settings including identification of services and payment arrangements, informed consent information and liability clarifying and limiting clauses
- Formulate a liability limiting clause
- Define and describe informed consent
- Discuss personal safety issues in case management
- Describe boundary issues with regards to veterinarians and how to work effectively with them as allied professionals
- Describe and discuss effective attending behaviors to promote more effective communication
- Explain the importance of utilizing written documentation of assessment and behavior change programming as well as end-of-services closing documents
- Work through a formal ethical decision making process
- Explain why confidentiality is important
- Define informed consent and explain how to achieve it and why it is important
- Define professionalism and explain why it is important
- Explain what professional practice guidelines or codes of ethics are and how they can help the professional
- Define and discuss competency and explain why it is important
- Discuss responsible advertising practices and why they are important
- Explain how to decide when aversive stimulation may be necessary and work through the LIEBI model
- Discuss ethics of assessment processes
Tuition:
The tuition is identified at the top of this page with the payment button. Tuition is in Canadian funds (Currency Converter). 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.
Schedule:
This program is self-paced within a 1 year time limit.
Note: The program is not vocational and is intended as a professional development for animal trainers and behaviour technologists to help them improve or upgrade their knowledge and skills. The program does not provide all the skills and knowledge required to obtain employment as an Animal Behavior Technologist. Further, hands on, supervised development of mechanical skills are also necessary.