Few posts back, I was complaining how there is not much happening regarding clicker training in Hong Kong. And, following the simple concept of "one who knows something knows more than those who nothing" I decided to try to do something about it.
So, what am I talking about? Program of my school requires me to think of a have a project week – week out of school during which I will have, well, a project. Although students mostly travel outside of Hong Kong, I was thinking of staying ere and organizing some kind of dog related lectures. Main aim of those lectures would be to inform people of clicker training, to make them aware of dog body language and to maybe break some misconceptions about dog behavior.
So, my questions are: can I even do something like that taking into account that I have no qualifications (except training my two dogs at home to a certain level I'm so not satisfied with yet)? If yes, how should I do it? What is the balance between to much and to little? Right now, I'm using terms like positive reinforcement, and negative punishment, and shaping without a problem, but I remember how hard was it for me to catch up with those. What kind of vocabulary should I use? I was thinking of taking a dog with me and shape a simple behavior to show people how it works… is that a good idea? I mean, I love shaping and like to think that I have good timing and that I raise criteria quite well,<but I too, had oh-to-much of experience with dogs that were so crazy in a strange environment that nothing worked.
So, well, here I am, a person who worked with her dogs, a bit with some others, who tried to explain clicker training to many people, don't know with which rate of success, and with bunch of enthusiasm to spread new things to people because I think that education of people is very important. Any suggestions for me?
The Training Game
The training game is always a fun thing to do for presentations and seminars. That way you don't have to bring an animal with you, which expands where you can hold the seminar! A lot of the articles on this website are great tools for teaching, such as "Fifteen Ways For Getting Started With the Clicker." You could even show video clips of yourself training, or from training videos sold on the website. Lots of possibilities!
Susan