Program

Resilience is an individual’s ability (human or dog) to recover quickly from, and resist, the negative effects of stressful events, situations, and conditions. It is a positive adaptation or “bounce back ability”. Whether a professional in the behavior field or a competitor of dog sports, we must consider resilience when creating training programs or addressing behavior issues. Most dogs around the world no longer live quietly by the fireside, roaming open spaces, without restrictions; and as society continues to change, our cities get busier and our lives more hectic, it's not only humans that benefit greatly from an ability to adjust and adapt. Neuroscientist and veterinarian, Dr. Kathy Murphy, and Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, Bobbie Bhambree, discuss the framework they developed for creating individualized resilience conditioning plans or schedules. What are the seven domains of resilience conditioning and why are they essential for our dogs and our training plans? What interventions and exercises are most effective in building resilience? How do they help, and how can you implement them?

Wondering what's been on Leslie's mind lately? Leslie will be passion-talking about a few topics she's been thinking a lot about, including how the concept of agency and the Degrees of Freedom model work in Pattern Games, and how to use eating-related behaviors such as Lick, Sniff and Forage to access the nervous system.

In this presentation, Danielle will guide us through how the power of the pattern can be used to help our dogs to control their meerkat, particularly those dogs that have been impacted by trauma. The meerkat is an analogy developed by Danielle to help canine caregivers understand how the brain affects your dog’s behavior. The meerkat represents the parts of the hindbrain. Often our dogs react so quickly we lose control, they’re like a different dog and treats just don’t work. This emotional “high jacking” is the meerkat and she can show you how to control the meerkat so you can train your dog.

Probiotics are starting to be recommended by veterinarians to help manage behavioral issues in dogs, either as support in addition to behavioral medication or just on their own. Are they actually effective? How could adding bacteria to the GI system affect the brain? How long term must they be given? What changes might you expect, and what diagnoses are they helpful for? Are there side effects? What's the best brand to buy, or can you make your own? Join Jessica, a research scientist who specializes in the biology of behavior, for a deep dive into the crazy new findings coming out about probiotics and behavior in dogs.

Leslie has taken her always popular and always powerful Look at That game and added a new twist: LATTE, which stands for Look at That Then Enrichment. Treat your dogs to a relaxing counterconditioning experience in an enriched environment that encourages them to lick, sniff, chew, and decompress while playing a sloooowed down version of your favorite game. Leslie will also introduce the brand new Lick and Learn product that she created with Clean Run. It allows any pattern game to become an opportunity for decompression.

What’s with CU and chairs? Leslie always said chairs are everywhere at dog events so it’s important for our dogs to feel safe around them. We want our dogs to think good thoughts about people sitting in chairs, getting up from chairs, moving chairs around, etc. When I go to a dog event, setting up my chair is establishing my home base, and that’s how I look at this game for my dogs, too. The chair is a touchstone. The dog learns that each venture out to a target in the environment will be followed by a return to the chair, the safe personal space. So the concept of Chair Game is to use the chair as our dog’s home base, that’s the foundation concept. From there we expand the distance from the chair, complicate the path back to the chair, manipulate the challenges in the environment, and even substitute what constitutes our chair. The bumper of my car is my favorite ‘chair’ as I progress this pattern into the big world away from home. The all-important feelings of safe space expand out from the chair as you learn and practice the Chair Game pattern.

There are a number of different ways that you can reinforce your dog with food rewards that will help to lower arousal. This lab will allow you to experiment with these strategies to determine the best fits for your dog, while practicing (or learning) some of the most useful CU patterns. Kim will use concepts from ACE Free Work to create a reward system for your dog that is emotionally and physically comforting for both you and your dog!