Attention Please

This course gave me everything that has been missing in our training.

Agnieszka Janarek Agnieszka Janarek
Start: 01 Nov 2024
Next: TBA

Auditor:

  • Duration: 6 weeks.
  • Learning materials: Written lessons with video tutorials.
  • Access to other Premium members' threads for additional insights.
  • Certificate of attendance upon completion.
  • Lifetime, 24/7 access to course materials.
  • Join the vibrant Tromplo community.
  • Earn 4 loyalty program points.

Premium:

  • Earn 15 loyalty program points.
  • Personalized attention: Instructor analyzes 12 minutes of your training videos weekly.
  • Engage in interactive learning with homework and daily feedback.
$139.00 Add to Cart

“When will you finally get yourself a real sport dog?”

I have heard this question multiple times while being with Gapcio: at obedience seminars, competitions, and training sessions. I have to tell you it wasn’t easy to see him looking around, sniffing, and even running away from me during all these events. It really felt like he was just not meant for ‘training,’ like there was some inner trait that simply made him a ‘poor’ training companion. Or that’s what other people tried to make me believe.

The truth is, I didn’t teach him how to learn; I didn’t give him a choice. I simply didn’t know better! It took me years to understand this. It took me years to study and become the teacher Gapcio deserved. Now, I want you to take advantage of all these years I spent studying and training. I want you to make much faster progress and avoid the errors I have made

  • Have you ever felt exhausted and frustrated because your dog “just doesn’t care about working with you”?
  • Have you run out of ideas to make your training more engaging for your dog?
  • Have you ever felt hopeless during working with your dog?
  • Have you ever felt like there is something innate that makes your dog ‘unable’ to focus?
  • Or maybe you want to clean up your training skills, learn how to use loops in sessions?

I will help you overcome all these issues and your dog

But don’t just listen to me! I have helped hundred of teams to improve their skills and relationships:

  • “This course changed my thinking on a lot of things, including past advice I’d gotten from other R+ trainers. It made me much more aware of the way I interact with my dog, even when we’re not training.” Allison Pearce
  • I don’t have enough words to praise this course. It gave me everything that has been missing in our training. When we started it my dog opted out from training almost every time. After six weeks he now have the training joy back. The theory and videos were great. I was a Premium and it was invaluable to get direct feedback on my videos.” Elin and Ivy
  • Great course. My dog and I have struggled with focus and motivation and have “read all the books” but couldn’t crack the code on our own. At the end of the course I have a dog, that is happy to start work and has even started to initiate it himself when out and about. Course material breaks it all down in manageable steps and that plus instructor feedback has given us a foundation and tools to move forward.” Michelle and Stan

What will you find in this course: before diving into complex behaviors, you will teach your dog how to learn, and focus is a key component of that process. You will explore what focus entails, how to define and measure it, and how to incorporate it into errorless training sessions. By building a solid foundation of focus, you’ll be able to teach your dog new behaviors effectively.

What will you learn from this course?

  • Starting and ending training sessions effectively.
  • Operationalizing focus behaviors and establishing clean focus loops.
  • Learning wait-for-cue behavior.
  • Constructing training scenarios that progress from simple to complex.
  • Implementing training loops and backward chaining techniques.
  • Arranging antecedents to optimize focus.
  • Mastering trainer mechanics for seamless communication.
  • Exploring multiple exercises to build focus behaviors.

 

This course serves as a prerequisite for the advanced course, “Let Me Want It,” where you will move your dog’s focus and engagement to the next level.

Who will be your instructor?

My name is Agnieszka Janarek and I am the founder of Tromplo, and my academic background is in Applied Behavior Analysis. I aim to bridge the gap between science and practice, teaching my students how to apply scientific knowledge to real-world scenarios. My goal is to dispel myths and rely on reliable education based on scientific and ethical principles in the animal training world. I have helped hundred of students build a better relationship with their dogs!

 

Course Testimonials

I would highly recommend this course for anyone looking to build their technical skills. As a learner, I had a very enjoyable experience. It was the perfect combination of confidence building while also really challenging me. I work in the zoo community, and I’m leaving empowered with exercises that I’ll use with exotic species at work and with my pets at home. (I took it with my cats!)

Kaitlyn Wiktor

June 30, 2023

Jax is a lovely dog to work with but his joy is even more noticeable now than before the course and I am thinking more about how I set up sessions. Admittedly, it has also crept into other parts of my life, the other week I had some clean laundry to fold and as I decided to do just a few items every night to make it easier to overcome the boredom of it I thought to myself: “small approximations towards the end goal of all the laundry being folded and put into the drawers”… And I have started to set up everything I need for a workout session beforehand, very neatly, making it easy to get started when it is time, just like any dog training session!

Carolina Sixt

June 30, 2023

3 months after taking the course I couldn’t be happier with how the training with my rescue dog Tobi has developed. Not only can we have regular focussed training sessions now that are fun for both of us and feel like something we’re engaging in as a team, but also has Tobi’s behavior improved in a variety of everyday situations. I already worked with +R marker training before the course, but only now that I learned more about behavior analysis and structure my training it’s really starting to be effective. Introducing elements of choice and clarity has totally changed the game for Tobi and I feel empowered now to take responsibility for my training rather then blame his character for something not working the way I hoped.
I recommend this foundation course to anyone – at first I wasn’t sure whether it would be the right course for us, but it was definitely the course we needed!

Lukas Maurer

June 30, 2023

Great course. My dog and I have struggled with focus and motivation and have “read all the books” but couldn’t crack the code on our own.

At the end of the course I have a dog, that is happy to start work and has even started to initiate it himself when out and about.

Course material breaks it all down in manageable steps and that plus instructur feedback has given us a foundation and tools to move forward.

Michelle Wiechert

June 30, 2023

Great course with excercises for building engagement in training session. Also, nice introduction to ABA in animal training. I would probably have better experience as a Premium student but even as an Auditor I managed to improve my training after this course.

Agnieszka Rybicka

June 30, 2023

An awsome basic course! I took it as an auditor, but practiced all of the excercises with my dog. The perfect step by step instructions, a perfect combination of written and video instructions helped me build my skills and in turn also a perfect attention of my dog in challenging environments. Highly recomend!

Neža Tesovnik

June 30, 2023

Great course that sets ground for systematic and positive approach to the training session you always dreamt about! This course is not “simply” about getting the attention of your dog during training, it’s about looking at yourself and discovering all the little and big mistakes that you do as a handler and that don’t allow your dogs to develop their learning skills. I should have done this course years ago! I’m amazed with the results and despite my journey just began I already see how much my dogs (and of course myself) changed their attitude towards training.

If you’re taking this course be aware that you’ll need matt, kongs, several places with & without people/ dogs/ smells where you can record and train with your dogs. During Covid 19 I struggled a bit to find good/ legally open and safe places where I could train – even for such short sessions. The teacher was very supportive and provided very constructive feedback at all times.

This is the first time I find a teacher who truly understands mutts and rescues and who respects their timing.

Sofia Tavares

June 30, 2023

I trully recommand this course!

Fredzio is my first dog and as a novel handler, my main goal was and still is to build close, thoughtful relation with my dog…but actually I didnt know what doesit mean tome and how to make this “beautiful relation” happen. We were “loosing” each other on every walk, I did not understand “why my boy is ignoring me?

On “attention please” we were working on building our relation in ethical and systhematic way. Step by step from session to session we we were getting closer to each other. Course was very individualuzed. You do not need to rush to follow the program, Agnieszka adjusted exercises to our needs and level so we keept progressing from first to last day of the course. After 6 weeks we really keep in touch during walks…I did not expect that

Janina Gmiter

June 30, 2023

Everyone will agree that attention is one of the most important components in a communication channel between two individuals, irrespective of species, or task. Funnily enough, it is also the skill that we tend to gloss over, because there are so many other *shiny* things that seem more important to work on. I think a big reason for this is that the concept of attention has a certain je ne sais quois, and it is hard/intimidating to motivate yourself to work towards a vague goal.

What I loved about this class how is thoughtfully Agnieszka has planned it, starting with helping you define exactly what “attention” means for your individual goals and then outline skills that can serve as building blocks to get to your definition of attention. There is a wonderful balance of these exercises and cleverly inserted theories of learning that help you make better choices for your team in terms of planning for efficiency, clarity and setting up for success.  You have the option to go as deep or wide with your skills, and her excellent and pointed feedback helped me iron out some wrinkles that I was struggling with for a while, or did not even realize I would hit 🙂  My newly adolescent dog loved going everywhere and trying the basic exercises, and by starting with this simple ask of attention and nothing else, training has started becoming something he looks forward to! Im really glad I took this class with him, and think it is a fantastic place to spend some time with your team mate, irrespective of where you are in your training journey.

Thanks Agnieszka!

Alamelu Sankaranarayanan

June 30, 2023

This course is absolutely awesome and I had a great  learning experience. Former question marks has been answered and it helped me understand some of the geekier details of foundation training. It is an in-depth foundation course and Agnieszka is a very good teacher who makes the material easily accessible and creates a safe place to learn. I highly recommend tis course.

Tendai Runesson

June 30, 2023

I audited “Attention Please” with my cat Percy as our first-ever Tromplo course, and we loved it! Both Percy and I really enjoyed following along with the exercises on our own, while I also learned a lot from the individual feedback that the premium students received. I’ve been doing clicker training and R+ with Percy for a while already, but this course really helped to significantly improve our foundations, which in turn improved all our training. Even though the target audience of this course seems to be predominantly dogs (/dog-parents), I can wholeheartedly recommend this course for cats (/cat-parents) too, regardless of prior R+ training experience!

Sonja Grassmugg

June 30, 2023

This course changed my thinking on a lot of things, including past advice I’d gotten from other R+ trainers. It made me much more aware of the way I interact with my dog, even when we’re not training. Some of the big takeaways for me were: eating is an operant behavior, to watch out for extinction, and to let my dog say “no” to training sessions rather than working harder and harder for his attention. However, my dog is a bit unusual when it comes to food reinforcers, and we’re still at square 1 with focus when we go outside. It’s going to take a while to see this class pay off during our walks and outings, but I’m hopeful. Agnieszka was very patient with us and helped tailor the class to where we were.

Allison Pearce

June 30, 2023

Lessons:

  • Week 1 01 Nov 2024

    • Welcome!

      Read this before proceeding to the first lesson! Welcome, students! …

    • Definition and concept of focus

      Before proceeding with the remaining part of the lesson, I highly recommend watching the video first. Once you have finished…

    • Outline of the course

      At first glance, the content of this course may appear basic and easy. However, it is important to remember the…

    • Acclimation time – predicting the contingencies

      Why is acclimation important? According to Doctor Friedman, when dogs (and all animals) find themselves in a new environment, they…

    • The rules apply both ways.

      The handler also has responsibilities when it comes to maintaining focus. Just as we ask…

    • 6. Delivery check point! (Free lesson)

      Delivering food is an essential component of training. Often, we take it for granted, assuming that dogs will eat food…

    • Marker cue

       A marker is a stimulus that has become a secondary reinforcer by the process of both classical and operant conditioning.

    • Start of the training session

      This lecture focuses on teaching a behavior that serves as a prerequisite for other behaviors and is essential for initiating…

  • Week 2 08 Nov 2024

    • The end of training session

      Behavior is constantly happening. The distinction between a training session and regular daytime activities lies in how we approach them.

    • Don’t call you dog…

      Am I going insane? Not exactly! In this lecture, we will address what to do when your dog disengages from…

    • Response to cue

      Up until now, our focus has been on the “handler focus” aspect of behaviors. We have worked on: Proximity to…

  • Week 3 15 Nov 2024

    • ABCs

      In our second lesson, we introduced a topic that we will now delve into further. It revolves around the concept…

    • Catch Me If You Can

      This training exercise can be likened to playing tag games with your dog. Many dogs learn focus behaviors only in…

  • Week 4 22 Nov 2024

    • Extinction

      Extinction, or more accurately, operant extinction, refers to the process in which a previously reinforced behavior is weakened by withholding…

    • Wait for cue

      Wait for cue behavior refers to one part of the loop or stimulus control. Stimulus control is when the presence…

    • Sandwich style

      This week, our focus will be on introducing gradual reduction of the rate of reinforcement in our training. We will…

  • Week 5 29 Nov 2024

    • Break

      Behavior occurs not only during training sessions but also between repetitions and during breaks. It…

    • All-together

      It’s time to change things up and combine the exercises you’ve been working on throughout the course. We’ll focus on…

    • Backward chaining

      This method utilizes the Premack principle, which states that a less predictable behavior can be made more predictable by reinforcing…

  • Week 6 06 Dec 2024

    • Did someone mention competition?

      You may not have considered participating in dog sports before, but I believe that following a structured training session, planning…

    • Competing stimulus – distractions

      What are distractions? Distractions, scientifically referred to as competing stimuli, are additional stimuli present in the environment that signal availability…

    • Final Thoughts: Celebrating Achievements and Continuing the Journey

      Farewell and Keep Moving Forward! Mega Cheers…

Free Lesson

Delivery check point!

Delivering food is an essential component of training.

Often, we take it for granted, assuming that dogs will eat food anywhere, anytime, and regardless of how it is delivered. We forget to observe how our dogs consume food and fail to pay attention to our own delivery skills.

Today’s exercise will focus on assessing how your dog takes food and how you deliver it. This assessment will allow us to adjust the difficulty level of the tasks in this course. Let’s begin in location #1. Our goal is to ensure a smooth delivery process where neither the dog nor you are distracted. We want your dog to eat one treat after another without interruption.

The main criteria are the fluency of the behavior, precise treat-taking (and delivery on your part), and speed. We do not want any pauses or breaks in eating or delivery. Other than eating, we are not concerned about what the dog does during this exercise.

Instructions:

  • Prepare 5 to 10 treats.
  • Stand or sit in front of your dog.
  • Deliver treats one at a time.
  • Wait for the dog to finish chewing the previous treat before delivering the next one.
  • The only criterion we are focusing on is the dog eating the treats.
  • Deliver the treats without any breaks, maintaining a fast pace.

The ability to eat treats effectively is crucial in training, as treats serve as our primary choice for reinforcing desired behaviors.

Please collect data on:

  • The time your dog needs between each treat.
  • Any unwanted behavior that occurs during the exercise.

By monitoring these variables, we can gain valuable insights into the efficiency of the delivery process and make necessary adjustments to improve overall training outcomes.

Bez Tytułu (29.7 X 21 Cm) (15 X 10.606 Cm) (12 X 8.485 Cm)

Homework:

  • record the session in location 1.