Clicker Expo St. Louis: Day 1

March has been a long and frankly terrible month, and I seriously considered not attending Clicker Expo this weekend as I originally planned. But I'm just wrapping up a fun day of lectures and adventure, and I'm feeling pretty comfortable with my decision to come as of right now. A few years ago, I attended APDT and "live blogged" summaries of the different sessions I attended. This was really helpful for me, both to consolidate my thoughts on the many learning opportunities I followed and to remind myself of the key points I learned as time passed. So, I've decided to live blog again this weekend. Without further ado, here are the sessions I attended today:

Say What? The Terminology Challenge with Ken Ramirez
I'll be honest, there were several other lectures at this time that probably would have been more beneficial for me to attend. But Ken is on of my favorite story tellers, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to hear him present new material. In this presentation, Ken talked about the difficulty that is spoken language. It really frustrates Ken when there's a conversation about behavior that falls apart due to misuse and misunderstanding of terminology. Part of the problem is that there are so many different definitions for the words we use. For example, if your dogs completes a behavior and you give his a piece of food, you could label that a reinforcer - or a treat, or a reward, or a pay check, or a cookie, or or or . . . Ken reminds us to tailor our speech for our audience (reinforcer for scientists, reward for students, etc.). One of the important thoughts I took from this presentation was Ken's discussion of punishment. Ken pointed out that in colloquial use, punishment does hold an aspect of retribution. In common conversation, a person can punish someone because "they deserve it." However, as trainers we believe that punishment is aimed at a behavior, not a person or animal. I think this is important to remember when we talk about punishment with the general public.

Look Away from the Dog with Theresa McKeon
I know this will come as a shock to some of you (and a "well, duh" to others), but human-human social skills do not come naturally to me. As a result, I try to regularly participate in learning about human behavior. It not fun for me, but it's a skill I need. Theresa's lecture was my Clicker Expo human-human learning. More than 50% of human communication is non-verbal; we rely on body language almost as much as dogs do - but we study it a lot less. Theresa took a very dog trainer style approach to human body language teaching. We discussed different aspects of human body language, and then watched videos to pick apart what we discussed in the context of real human communication. Actually, humans and dogs share a great deal of body language cues. For example, both species have submissive grins. We also both tongue flick, yawn, and blink as calming signals/self soothing. Theresa emphasized the importance of training the human learner first, without the dog, as a strategy for reducing stress and improving success. Her entire lecture was really interesting, but one of the ideas that resonated with me is that students really don't want you to see them fail - that's not shocking - but the more the student likes a teacher, the more they will stress and struggle not to allow that teacher to see them fail.

No Problem! How Problems Create Great Horse Training with Peggy Hogan
Wait, I went to what now?
Anytime there's a conference like this, there's invariably a couple of sections where nothing is really, really exciting. Fortunately, Clicker Expo covers not only dogs, but also horses and other animals. I know that learning about other species makes me a better dog trainer, so I decided to attend one of the horse-oriented sessions (because PONIES). Peggy's concepts were simple enough that even a dog trainer could figure it out. Shaping (or "learner controlled behavior" - terminology, I'm telling you) is an effective way to help horses build confidence, relationship, and behavioral wellness. Peggy's system for problem behavior modification is to identify the specific issue, and then set up shaping exercises outside of the environmental context. The example she used most frequently was loading a horse into a trailer. Many horses struggle with backing out/stepping down when unloading, and this makes them anxious about getting into the trailer. For this issue, Peggy suggested shaping the horse to back up and step down away from the trailer. I feel like pulling specific behaviors out of a chain, working them, and then putting them back into the chain is a fairly common tool in dog training as well. Horses and dogs, it turns out are quite similar in a lot of their learning. But there are also differences - you don't want to reward a horse close to your body, for example. Additionally, stimulus control and duration are even more important when working with a 1,200 lb animal than it is with a 40 lb animal - a horse that randomly throws behaviors in the hope of being reinforced can be a very dangerous animal.

Reactive Dog Games with Emma Parsons
My reactive dog Maus was a game changer for me. It's maybe a bit cliche, but I would not be the person and trainer I am today without him - and Maus would not be the dog he is today without Emma Parsons and her book "Click to Calm." It was really fun to see and listen to one of my heroines in person, and I'm looking forward to getting her autograph at tomorrow's book signing. I don't want to go too deep into this lecture because I want to surprise my reactive dog student's, both beginner and advanced, with some of these games. So y'all are just gonna have to come take class with me. (We're gonna have so much fun!!!)


AND THEN I saw Hannah Branigan and followed her around the clicker store for twenty minutes without introducing myself like the socially awkward and nerdy fan girl that I am. (Hannah also smells leather leashes before she buys them. I thought you should know that.)