At the weekend I’m going on a course entitled ‘A Career as a Dog Trainer’, run by the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers. I took early retirement from teaching and am probably a bit long in the tooth to be considering a new career, but hope it will be interesting and aid my voluntary training with the local dog club. It’s theory, so you don’t take your dog, but if it’s good (and finances permitting) I may do the second half next year, which is a four day practical course. Looking forward to it.
You go for it Joy, you are NEVER too long in the tooth to learn new things. I really hope you enjoy it and look forward to hearing about it xx
Excellent @Joy, no indeed, never too long in tooth, I'm forever thinking what I might do next I'm sure you'll enjoy it and I look forward to hearing about it in due course.
Wonderful! I look forward to hearing about it. I've toyed with the idea of doing one of their courses, so it will be interesting to hear from someone who has experienced it
Oh fantastic @Joy . I'm sure you'll really enjoy it. IMDT are good courses and I know several trainers who are IMDT accredited. Is Steve Mann tutoring the course? Have fun, save your pennies for the 4 day course and believe me you're never too old to start as a trainer I should know
Yes I think it’s Steve Mann -at least I’ve got his name in my head from somewhere, though looking through the course details I’m not sure it says... I’ll let you know when I’ve done it!
Forgot to ask if there is a pre-course reading list as I'd be interested to see what IMDT recommend. I'm debating booking the 1 day Canine Body Language at the moment. Good value price, and I love body language but just booked another course which needs overnight stay and would really like to book the APBC Conference. Lots to do/attend - shame about the financials
No, no reading list. Very few details, I’ve just booked on the strength of the IMDT’s reputation and reviews. Also it’s only about 90 minutes drive from me whereas all the KCAI approved providers are long journeys and would mean overnight stays which obviously adds to the cost.
I'm a little surprised that there is no suggested pre course reading around the main sunjects. I'm sure the course is good - Steve is very good, and I know people who are accredited with IMDT and they are great trainers
I thought I’d report back on the course, which I enjoyed very much -in fact I’ve booked the four-day practical for next May. (They offered a hefty discount over the weekend which helped!) The course was led by Steve Mann and he was an extremely engaging speaker who didn’t seem to need to refer to notes and who was both knowledgeable and entertaining. I’ve watched a few of his YouTube videos, but in real life he is much more charismatic. I’m not sure I really learnt anything new as regards theoretical content, as I come from a background in education (did my first degree in English and Psychology then much later an MA in education) and I’ve read quite a lot on dog training theory, but I did find it really useful to take time to revise it all mentally and listening to Steve’s linking the theory to practical dog training situations was very helpful. The course covered classical and operant conditioning; observation of dog body language; what is a reinforcer; clicker training; shaping / incremental learning; talking to owners; running classes; dealing with problems. Steve did a couple of short demonstrations coaching one class member to teach one of Steve’s own dogs to learn something. It really reminded me /drummed into me the importance of incremental learning -that if the dog doesn’t do the behaviour then you need to break it down into smaller steps; that repeating the same thing won’t help at all. Also the need to start with low distractions and then add them gradually. One demo was with his gorgeous Staffie, Pablo. The aim was for him to knock over a cardboard cup on the floor by using his paw. It amazed me how quickly he learnt this, by shaping using the clicker. It struck me that the more a dog is used to being clicked and rewarded for small steps, the readier he becomes to offer a range of behaviour to get the reward. Steve said that he wanted the dog to have the mindset, ‘How do I get the monkey to feed me?’ It was great to learn from someone with Steve’s ethics - dogs aren’t stubborn, they either don’t understand or aren’t motivated.
