As the caregiver of a mare who used to stand solely on her hind feet for the majority of her shoeing and a pony who came prepared to harm himself and others resisting medical care, I am familiar with how medical or husbandry procedures can become dangerous and generate suffering to all involved.

These horses are not "bad" nor “dominant” or "headstrong" but rather animals facing a stressful situation who are feeling and expressing themselves in the only way they know to defend themselves. It is our responsibility to familiarise and teach them how to behave under these scenarios. But this is also an amazing opportunity to establish kinship, build trust and enrich our shared language. 

Studies have shown that having the power to choose and influence (gain control) is essential to both humans and animals' health. It has a reinforcing value and it is an inherent part of real cooperation.

Sharing control with horses during medical or husbandry procedures can help transform an aversive stimulus (stressful/unpleasant) like receiving an injection, applying ointment, or lifting a leg for hoof care (or whatever has previously scared our horse off) into a reinforcing stimulus (desirable/pleasant).

Adding control to the horse will eliminate or reduce stress and can be revolutionary for both horses and humans.

It’s much more than just kindness alleviating our horse's suffering; it also has a very practical aspect: We are all affected by stress on a cellular level. Stress can cause secondary health damage like ulcers, colic, and slow healing process. It will hinder treatment, it can even alter and affect the accuracy of blood tests results (as stress affects cortisol and other hormones), and stress can lead to avoidance or conflictive behaviours that can pose danger to the caregivers and the horse itself. 

This does not mean that the horses are the only ones "controlling" the procedure. It means that both humans and horses have a way to influence in these circumstances and can work in true partnership, which is the actual meaning of ‘co-operative care’.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLZO5uD0sEY[/embed]

Learn how to facilitate breathtaking transformation and gain inspiring cooperation with your horse:
Change the way your horse perceives and behaves in husbandry and medical care scenarios. Deepen your shared language, reduce stress and train horses to be active, willing participants while using control (choice and influence) both as a reinforcer and an indicator to influence training and real time procedures. 

Gain deeper understanding of concepts and fluency in applying techniques and tools for training and enable better welfare. Build trust and confidence in both you and your horse and minimise safety risks for all.

Some of the skills and concepts taught in the course:

• Shaping a chin rest and other ‘Start Buttons’ behaviours to use in cooperative care. 

• Defining your goal then letting horses lead, ‘co-creating’ individualised shaping processes.
• Learning to set up inviting environments and use varied feeding techniques as your part of the dialog and your training toolkit.

• Broadening observational skills and adding flexibility.

• Defining and setting up choices - or - how and why to reinforce both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ while maintaining learning. 
• Looking at desensitisation and counter-conditioning with an operant mindset.
• Building duration, adding variety and distraction to the learning.

• Shaping behaviours for eye care, clipping, accepting injections, fly spray, and more.

Pre-requisites: 

Both you and your horse need to be clicker savvy, having some experience with targeting, shaping and adding cues to behaviours.

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(In Cooperative care with horses Part 2: you will train varied behaviours for hoof care)

• Principles over recipes
• The power of learner-driven teaching
• Performance--Feedback--Revision
• Training in "Three Acts"
• The Brave Learning Rubric for planning and assessment
• How to hone in on meaningful goals for each training session
• What is "errorless learning" really?
• How to find the right starting point (and what to do if you're wrong)
• How to let antecedents work for you, not against you
• How to avoid "cue pile ups"
• How to identify when prerequisites are missing for something you are trying to teach
• How to capitalize on previously learned repertoires
• How to tell if your marker signals are effective
• How to isolate cues within a context (aka "stimulus control")
• How to build resilience into your behaviors right from the start
• How to develop reinforcement strategies that suit your learner's needs in the moment
• Knowing when to follow the rules and when it is okay to break them

[embed]https://vimeo.com/571409186?fbclid=IwAR3cRYj5WTl7v8nnEsLdWAbTsus05nvJymXCKYxmF2MRpSuP4q0WhKQKlLk[/embed]

A reliable recall is one of the most important safety behaviors we can teach the dogs in our lives, and in emergency situations. When we need our recall to work, we really need it to work!

• Do you wish your dog would come back when you called?
• Does your dog come back most of the time, but not quite all the time, and often not when it really matters?
• Do you wish your dog would stay closer to you and not run off in the first place?
• Does your dog run back to you when you call, but then immediately take off again?

Do you dread walking your dog?  

Is it a constant struggle with pulling and a tight leash?  

Does your dog seem to forget you exist when you’re out on a walk?  

Can you imagine what walks would be like if your dog walked next to you and paid attention to you?  

By taking this course you will learn the skills that will help you and your dog achieve your polite walking dreams!   

Pulling on walks is often a frustrating problem for both you and your dog that can be detrimental to your relationship. It can also be dangerous and can lead to injuries to either of you! It’s not all lost though and this course will get you on the right track! Whether the dog is big or small, loose leash walking skills can be useful for all! With a puppy or newly adopted dog who doesn’t pull yet, the skills you will learn in the course can prevent future walking troubles from developing.  

In this course you will learn:

• How to select the appropriate equipment for walks with your dog
• How to use reinforcement efficiently on the walk
• How to teach your dog to pay attention to you
• How to teach your dog to walk on a loose leash in a variety of locations
• What to do when the leash gets tight
• How to teach your dog to turn away from distraction and walk with you in the other direction
• How to work with distractions 
• Walking games including Leslie McDevitt’s 1-2-3 from Control UnleashedTM

If we haven't convinced you yet, here is a more in-depth description of what you'll find in the course:

Week 1

1. Basic skills you and your dog will need
2. Identify your goals
3. Select appropriate equipment for your walks
4. Learn about important concepts and terminology including operant conditioning and marker signals
5. Identify the skills you and your dog will need for loose leash walking
6. Learn to select the correct environment to set you and your dog up for success
7. Know what to do when the leash gets tight

Week 2

1. Teaching u-turns, the 1-2-3 game and directional turns
2. Learn how type of reinforcement, rate of reinforcement, reinforcement placement and other small changes can make a big difference to keep the leash loose
3. Learning what motivates our dogs to pull in the first place
4. The “Three Ds” and loose leash walking

Week 3

1. How to change speed successfully on a walk
2. Learn how to pay attention to the environment and how that impacts our success with polite walking
3. How to build fluency with our polite walking skills in a variety of environments
4. How other important skills like recall can help us on walks

Week 4 - Working with distractions 

1. Diving deeper into motivation and distractions
2. How to identify distractions for the individual dog in front of us
3. Learn to work in more challenging environments
4. Learn when and how to teach our dogs to avoid distractions, and when and how we might use some distractions as reinforcers for loose leash walking

Week 5 

1. Different types of walks including urban walks and more decompression style walks and skill sets needed for both
2. Building duration with polite walking, and with the 1-2-3 game
3. Learning how to decrease distance to distractions

Week 6 

1. Putting it all together - distraction plus duration
2. Remembering to be mindful of the individual we are working with, and the environment where we are working 
3. Learn about common challenges and troubleshooting

  We can’t wait to see you on the course!

Anna&Shelly    

Mat training is one of the most important behaviors that can be taught. It’s very useful in many situations when people and dogs live in the same space.  

Placement and size of the mat, your position, location of the treats, the timing of cues and markers, and other factors can create many variations of mat training. But don’t be scared, I will guide you through this process step by step!  

This mat training course will provide you with ideas on how to incorporate mat training into your daily life in a natural way so that both you and your dog can live stress-free and secure lives.  

Think about these questions:  

• Do you want your dog to stay on the mat while you vacuum?
• Do you want your dog to stay on the mat when you have guests or a delivery guy bring you a package?
• Do you want the dog to stay on the mat while you prepare the dog's food?
• Do you want the dog to stay on the mat while you eat your dinner at the table?
• Do you want the dog to stay on the mat while you work at your desk?

  If you have said YES! at least once while reading the questions above, you have to register for the course :D  

I will also share with you the "Most Common Mistakes" people tend to make when mat training, so you can learn in the shortest amount of time possible.  

Here are the skills and concepts that will be taught in the course:  

➡️ Antecedent Arrangements - prevention is better than cure

➡️ 3Ds-Distance, Distraction, and Duration

➡️ Understanding operant conditioning and classical conditioning

➡️ Going to the mat on cue

➡️ Replace it with a context cue

➡️ Stay on the mat until the release cue

➡️ Stay calm and settle on the mat

➡️ Generalize to both - inside and outside the house

➡️ Generalize to crate training - very useful during traveling (safety!) or in the animal hospital  

If your dog knows mat training very well, you can get a peaceful family visit without jumping or have tea with your dog at a cafe!  

I hope you will join this course and enrich your life with your dog through mat training. Register now!

"Dogs are a bit like chips... It's hard to have just one!"

In some families, cohabitation can go very well, but in others, the management of resources, the organization of training sessions, the walks and the harmony between the dogs, are going to be complicated. In a large family everything will be constantly multiplied: the positive, as well as...

The less positive. In fact, who says more dogs, says more challenge! Fortunately, there are solutions ! This course is designed to give you the tools to make a multi-dog household a peaceful and productive place.

Amélie lives with four dogs on a daily basis and regularly takes in guard dogs for several days. She will guide you step by step to (re)create harmony inside and outside your home.  

In this course you will learn to:

• Read and supervise canine interactions (conduct an introduction well, know how to interrupt an interaction, do consent tests, etc.)
• Teach behaviors that allow you to deal with everyday situations (food time, transport, walk, training, presence of guests, etc.)
• Set up consistent and fair communication (understand everyone's needs, one-to-one times, use the starts button, resources management, etc.)
• Become pro-active (prevent : why, when and how, anticipate risky situations, use the right tools) - Problem solving and managing “contagious” behaviors
• Take into consideration multiple factors before adding a new dog (crucial skills before you add a dog, assessment of your situation)  

This course is suitable for people with at least two dogs (from permanent cohabitation to occasional care), as well as people wishing to welcome a new dog soon (puppy, or already an adult dog).  

This class is NOT for households where there are dogs that are already aggressive towards each other and must already be managed with gates and doors etc.  

Course syllabus:

• Week 1 : Are you under the water ? Multiple dog household : Why it's hard ? Learn who are your dogs individually (his needs, his safe space) Is your dog really ok with... ? Household logistic
• Week 2 : Building healthy relationships Different rules for different dogs Routines to maximize enjoyment Work, chill and play with each dog individually When to let dogs train each other and when not to
• Week 3 : Crucial skills inside Games with names (individually and group) Stationning Wait your turn Sharing is caring Love being alone Guest coming !
• Week 4 : Crucial skill outside  Doors manners Transport Walking with multiple dog (leash walking and recall) Free times : calm versus high arousal
• Week 5 : Become pro-active ! Interrupting behaviors in a multi-dog household Manage play time Recognize "risk times" Managing “Contagious” Behavior Common problem solving
• Week 6 : Go forward or go back ? Considerations before adding a new member Assess compatibility Protocol for integration Red flag Rehome is not giving up