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Wow what a seminar !! :rainbowbridge: my head still hurts :( and I am still digesting it all. I did wish there was more time for other topics but otherwise I was pleased with what was covered.

Thankyou to Steve Lindsay, the NDTF and everyone working behind the scenes, an oppurtunity to attend such a seminar like that doesn't come along every day and I will definately remember it for some time to come :rofl:

Edited by kateshep
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I really enjoyed the conference!! Although some may have described him as meandering I actually enjoyed his style and thought that he actually said a lot more about training than some attendees thought he said. I have a lot of notes to now decipher! Unfortunately it had to end too soon, what a depth of knowledge and thinking the man expressed together with deep respect and love for dogs. The other speakers all also contributed valuable and interesting information, although I do wish Boyd would speak slower when presenting :( . Aren't those detector dogs fantastic??? I enjoyed seeing the dogs there at the presentation, the demonstration of dog dancing was a lovely expression of a great partnership. King is a gorgeous example of his breed and he just loves that sleeve!! I know there were some attendees who had some negative views of the conference but I'm not sure what their expectations may have been.

Thank you NDTF for this opportunity! I would love to have seen Steven Lindsay in action interacting with dogs, jealous!

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For those interested in Steve Austin's work with fox and cat trackers, there's a fellow in New Zealand who has trained dogs to find bat roosts. It was aimed at finding nursery caves of threatened species if I remember correctly.

I would also like to thank NDTF for their sponsorship. Can't speak for the others that got sponsored, but I wouldn't have gone otherwise. Out of my price range. Or at least, Vienna would have been my choice!

Does anyone want to discuss anything specific? Prepulse Inhibition? Control expectancies? The inadequacies of Behaviorism? I'm dying, here!

Is there anything people disagreed with?

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Is there anything people disagreed with?

Corvus, you wrote:

Day 1 in Sydney was very interesting, although I was glad I'd read some of his work beforehand. It took him a little bit of meandering to really settle in to what he wanted to say. He spoke a little about competence bringing about confidence in dogs and people, which was quite tantalisingly close to the optimism stuff I've just started reading up on for my studies. He also touched on what we perceive as rewards for a behaviour are only rewards for that behaviour if they were what the dog was wanting, and the idea that behaviour arises from predictions of outcomes. If an expected reward is not received, that is an aversive. What I thought was really cool was that pleasant surprises where the reward, or positive control factor, or whatever you want to call it, is greater than expected result in kind of an intensified affirmation. That lesson is learnt faster and retained longer. It works the same way when what happens is strongly disappointing because it falls short of the expectation.

I obviously did not attend, but have to add good post. Makes perfect sense to me, as I am sure to others.

You made an older girl smile when in another post, you mentioned the awful drive thread. Tell you the truth, I nearly fell off my chair laughing.

Heck even Mr Lindsay referenced Hediger (1955/1968) once aptly noted "good training is disciplined play".

Problem is some dogs want to "play" more than others.

Simply observe results from "training".

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Thanks Lablover. :cry:

Drive threads are only awful when you're the one getting consistently hammered, I suspect. :D Steven Lindsay said play was the best thing a dog could be into, as it was easiest to manipulate the level of arousal in that state, and play is where the most variation in behaviour occurs. I had read that in a paper about play one time, although I can't remember whose paper, now. Or it might have been that book "The Genesis of Animal Play: Testing the Limits". Good book, by the way. ;) He said if a dog naturally retrieved and played tug with people it was going to be a great dog with loads of potential.

Something else Lindsay said that made me rethink was that he thought we had too many terms and detail for things in dog training and behaviour. Like all those labels for types of aggression. It surprised me, because categorising things is how we make sense of them. It's a human impulse, really. But then, aggression is aggression and if you have a bunch of labels you could potentially use on it there's always the danger of categorising it incorrectly and letting that dictate how you treat it rather than the behaviour itself. Made me wonder about what level of detail is most helpful in different situations.

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Yes - formal qualification is MA. Practical qualifications rests in his experience of his work with companion dogs and in the evaluation and training of military working dogs as a member of the US Army Biosensor Research Team (Superdog Program).

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Yes - formal qualification is MA. Practical qualifications rests in his experience of his work with companion dogs and in the evaluation and training of military working dogs as a member of the US Army Biosensor Research Team (Superdog Program).

Thanks Erny, but what qualification is MA?

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What books of Steven's would you guys reccomend to someone interested in learning more about his theories?

Handbook of Applied Dog Behaviour and Training (2 or 3 volumes?) is a good start!

I actually think I have one already, a mammoth one that was pretty pricey yeah?

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What books of Steven's would you guys reccomend to someone interested in learning more about his theories?

Handbook of Applied Dog Behaviour and Training (2 or 3 volumes?) is a good start!

I actually think I have one already, a mammoth one that was pretty pricey yeah?

Sounds about right! Fortunately I can borrow a copy when I need to.

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