Fuck it I don't care if Tromplo is closing down I'm reviewing the courses I took:
I LOVED the attention please course. It was so practical and filled with so many clear and easy to implement games of slowly increasing difficulty. I learned how to structure an entire training session, not just the precision bits but the starting and ending of a session. Instead of nagging or coercing my dogs, I can go in knowing they're truly ready to train - and the dogs are happier getting to acclimatise to the environment fully and properly too.
The Readiness Checks (letting the dog initiate the routine) were a gamechanger in helping Thyme recover from his ring nerves and become an enthusiastic little sports boy and I am so please of what a star he is in the ring. Even got our first perfect scores, and a highest scoring dog in trial out of 260+ dogs.
The hardest part was learning to withdraw from a ring if he WASN'T ready but that short term sacrifice and trusting the process has proven to be the best in the long run, no trigger stacking no practicing bad experiences no poisoning the ring. It's full readiness check and consent or not at all.
I took this course after being intrigued by the Hellwork to Heelwork webinar and the little snippets within. This course made me examine what style of heeling I truly want and taught me how to achieve that in small successful micromovements. It really broke down all the different components of the heeling position and I really believe this is why Thorn will end up having a nicer heeling style than Thyme (who has tolerated through multiple heeling style experiments).
I appreciated how holistic it is in that way, and how the heeling style did not rely on luring or pocket targets (which lead to a heeling style I DONT want in my dogs). I could use the lessons within for that heeling style, but the lessons were so flexible I could use it for the heeling style I want. It was all about teaching me how to design my training sessions to achieve that goal.
This is the only course I have taken but haven't yet put into practice except in terms of a new appreciation of props and targets. Historically I've hated props and targets because you then have to fade them out but this course changed my mind on their use. Props and targets are helpful! If you fade them out quickly so as not to become the cue/dependent part of the environment.
It gave me lots of ideas on how to add precision and speed to send out behaviours, although this has backfired as I just KNOW i'm going to be slammed flat on a retrieve or recall one day. Sacrifices we make for speed and enthusiasm.
I am looking forward to when I return to position changes as it gave lots of ideas for improving the distance and duration on those, keeping them smooth and not losing the distance through reward placement and targets. (also super helpful for waiting exercises such as formal recall)
OffCue vol 1 and Offcue vol 2
I combined these two, because one is foundational and then the other one is advanced and builds upon Vol 1 in terms of difficulty but not new concepts.
I bloody loved Offcue. This course gave me a new understanding of inbuilt consent, of errorless methods, of how versatile shaping is and how powerful it can be. The importance of teaching skill sets to be offered and cues/stimulus control to come later. I'm also not very creative so I appreciate it gave step-by-step instructions for the 10 or so foundational skills for dog sports using entirely shaping and errorless methods, including a workbook for tracking. I truly had no idea how flexible and creative shaping as a training method can be - and how shaping in its hands-off approach inbuilds so much enthusiastic willing engagement.
The Offcue course is also when I first truly started to understand clean loopy training and minimising clutter, and what setting a dog up to succeed actually means. Loopy training FINALLY MAKES SENSE without all the jargon and overcomplication! I learned how to reward/reset in such a way as to bring the dog back into the starting position. I learned how to intentionally set my dogs up "incorrectly" so they would "self-correct" without any prompting from me, without any punishment or nagging or force. They knew what was an error and fixed it themselves.
I'm not done yet but the third thing offcue course taught me, that blew my mind, is that I can provide reinforcement for errors without reinforcing the error itself. I trusted the process and the first time I saw how my dogs clearly understood the difference between reinforcement (marker+reward) and a reward for trying (silent reset with reward)...my brain melted a little. It is so amazing that dogs can understand that cognitively. And even my dumbest dog understood it. This course changed the trajectory of our dog training relationship for the better, even if I still forget to respond to errors in this way sometimes.
This was my birthday present to myself and it ended up causing a small crisis in how I've been perceiving Thorn. You get template and homework modules to sit down and write things out and just the way it was all framed and worded had me approaching the predation sequence from the angle of biggest distraction - biggest potential reward.
I had to go and sit down because up until that course I would have said his biggest challenge is chasing but after the predation sequence observation homework I think it would actually be hunting/seeking is his most reinforcing sequence and therefore the hardest thing to recall him from is probably hunting/seeking. But also his most valuable reward type to reinforce him with.
All the homework eased you into a sort of self-analysis and introspective thinking that I'm not usually good at but this time around things were just making sense. I found it helpful to also right down my goals in the hierarchy provided and just all around really enjoyed this course.
It also have my favourite student fb group of all the courses. The amount of us with leg injuries still going out to work on our predatory gundog recalls is amazing.
This was a great course for anyone who's been frustrated to find out how lacking your dog training fundamentals have been on basic foundational skills because your previous dog trainers fucking sucked at teaching positive methods let alone cooperative training methods with inbuilt consent tests and the sheer versatility of errorless methods in achieving quick and happy results. This course was re-learning dog training from the most basic 101 levels to fill in all the knowledge gaps and repair the fucked up foundations.
My favourite section was how to structure training sessions, managing frustration in your dog and yourself, how to respond to errors in a positive and force free manner, and loopy training mechanics. It's a very practical course.
Course in progress as at 3 Jan 2025:
Errorless shaping for dog and animal trainers
I can't review this one yet because I'm only 3 days into it but I'm enjoying it so far. Ever since the Offcue course I've been wanting to upskill my errorless shaping methods, as the offcue course only covered the 10 or so foundational skills and I'm not very creative about using it ad hoc for exercises outside of the foundations.
you know what? Reviewing the webinars I took too:
5 things you need to know about BACKCHAINING in dog training
This one I took to upskill myself on, well, backchaining and how to set up structured training sessions around backchaining. I like that this course was less about step-by-step backchaining for specific exercises and more taught me how to plan my own backchaining. It made me excited to actually sit down and plan out backchaining and I did use the webinar to plan how I would backchain a dog backing up to a target, using errorless shaping and loopy training method mechanics.
(My plan goes like this: lure the dog into a standing position with rear feet on the target. Click-reward the dog five or so times for this position. On the sixth rep, present the reward to have the dog lean forward to eat the reward and click when the dog leans back into a more stable position. A couple of more reps of the reward causing a lean forward. Now after marking the lean back, present the reward so the dog has taken a step off the target to get the reward. The dog is out of position but wait while dog thinks. Mark dog when they step backwards onto the target and reinforce with the reward luring out of position. If any error just lure in a circle back into position with rear feet on the target, release the reset reward, and start over from the first step of clicking for back legs already on the target 300 peck style)
Food for thought - approaching eating as an operant behavior and food as more than a reinforcer
(Later renamed to Dog Training Dark Side – When Food Becomes the Enemy)
I took this because Thorn is pretty "low food drive" and I was struggling to use it as a reinforcement system without just turning it into high value bribery. There were two wolves inside me fighting (desire to win vs desire to ensure my dogs are genuinely enjoying the training process and not just in it for the nuggies).
This ended up one of those webinars that made me go HUH and stare at a wall for a bit. The topics of food as pressure, coercion, punishment and frustration were very helpful but I enjoyed the section on clean eating behaviours and delivery loops. I especially loved how we can then use food/eating and latency as a measure of how truly ready to work our dogs are. Really loving readiness checks.
This webinar broke heeling down into the absolute micromovements and included inbuilt enthusiastic offered consent from our dogs. I liked the questions it made us ask ourselves when it comes to what we want our heeling to look like. I also especially enjoyed that the focus was standing and moving in position, with the sitting becoming a final step at the end of a finish product. I have always regretted and hated that I taught Thyme following a method that follows a heavy auto-sit approach, leading to a dog heeling with a constantly lowered rear and raised head and just I hated how that looks. Our heeling is so much smoother and more balanced although he does still default to a sit to my endless dismay. I should go back to this webinar and its follow up course to work on that.
Mastering Engagement Errorless Methods for Teaching Your Dog Focus Skills
THIS webinar reminded me a lot of the Attention Please course, but in a smaller punchier package. It was a great refresher on getting enthusiastic offered engagement without simply increasing the value of the rewards (dipping into coercion/bribery) or nagging them (calling names, making noises, corrections etc)
It again went over the importance of letting dogs acclimatise to the environment, not rushing them, using pattern games to check if they are ready, or reluctantly (not) ready or not ready at all. The value of food and food placement as a way to check if they are engaging with you or simply checking in, and how to build up that enthusiastic engagement. It was just a great refresher and fun to listen to.
Mastering Errorless Animal Training
This webinar was a neat little compilation of all the critical hitting points of the Offcue Course and the Trainers Toolbox course. I liked the focus on how to structure an errorless training session because wow does learning how to structure training sessions so the dog actually succeeds, throughout the whole session and not just one small component, was a gamechanger. I also really enjoyed the section on troubleshooting errors in errorless learning, as I think this is where I get most stuck as I get frustrated when a training session doesn't go to plan. So having the webinar really hammer in how to respond to errors without getting frustrated and reminding me that the quantity of correct responses will drown out the few "mistakes" was valuable.
BREAKING NEWS I FORGOT ABOUT THE LOYALTY PROGRAM got enough points for another free webinar.
