April 14 – April 18 America/Santa Rosa
Getting the %$#@’ing Band Back Together
Instructors: Michael Ellis, Forrest Micke, and Dr. Stewart Hilliard
All the science, twice the caffeine, probably at least one good party, and more cussing than ever! Join the incomparable Michael Ellis, the puckish and masterful Forrest Micke, and the deeply irreverent Stewart Hilliard for five days of behavioral science, the ethics and data underlying animal welfare, and the history, mechanics, and future of dog training. We’ll play updated cuts of all our grooves, and some new songs, too, and like Bob we may suddenly go electric and &%$# with your mind. If you were here for Kynology 1, 2, or 3, you know what you are in for, only more. If not, then buckle up.
The symposium, as the name implies, will be discussion-heavy, perhaps 50% (or more) lecture and theory and 50% practical exercises. Forrest will describe and show, as only he can, how science-based theory is put into practice. Michael will be super-smart, eloquent, and crystal-clear, all at the same time– causing everything to make simple sense. Dr. Hilliard’s lectures will be comprehensive, passionate, at times comical or profane or both, and feature detailed treatment of the following topics:
- All the Lessons of Dog Spit, and why Ivan (not Balabanov, that other one) is out to get you
- Consequences, Schmonsequences, and what is the deal with people who say “Operant” versus everybody else?
- Ivan Again, that Asshole? The misbehavior of raccoons, pigs, dogs, and college undergraduates.
- Taking the Piss out of BF Skinner — The risks of positive reinforcement
- The Harshing of the Mellow — Aversiveness and positive punishment
- How come Pat Nolan Wears Shoes? Escape and avoidance
- Good News — Signaling to your dog about positive reinforcement, and the offsets of buzzkills
- Bad News — Signaling to your dog about all that other shit
- How We Confuse Dogs Without Really Trying — Stimulus control, blocking, overshadowing, and other tools of the Devil
- Control is Freaky — Learned helplessness and how people who don’t know enough about it, or about the way dogs are trained in the real world, use it as a cudgel to try to beat the the rest of us senseless
- Training Methodology — Seriously: The Agency- Accountability Approach to dog training and how it provides for training techniques that are kind and fair to dogs, ethically-defensible, and consistent with scientific data on animal learning and animal welfare — while also providing real-world results for dog trainers
- NOTE — If a bunch of this doesn’t make sense to you, then it will when we’re done with you, and you’ll be &%$#ing fascinated
Please click on tabs above to see further details about schedule and registration options.
Schedule:
13 April ( Monday ) — Pre-Event Mixer 7 PM to 9 PM
14 – 18 April ( Tues – Sat ) — Symposium 9:30 AM to 5 PM (ish)
Note that in-person students are welcome to watch morning training from 8 am – 9:15 ish am. As this is not officially part of the symposium, morning trainings will not be live-streamed.
Kynology Symposium – $2,000 (Limited to 40 slots)
Returning IN-PERSON attendees of another Kynology event receive a discount (check your email for discount code).
Demonstration dogs
This is not a working seminar meant to advance individual handler-dog teams. It is a Kynology Symposium meant to explore general dog training principles and themes….. and to analyze and demonstrate how they are translated into technique. That said we will definitely use live dogs to demonstrate practical work. The objective is to select approximately 5 demonstration dogs in the initial stages of training (but exhibiting good engagement with food and “toys,” and confident behavior in new and busy environments) and 5 dogs well-advanced in their training for their chosen discipline. If participants are interested in employing their dogs as demo dogs (to be handled by themselves and/or by instructors), they should please submit one, or at most two, 3- or 4-min video clips of the dogs working. Videos should particularly feature the dogs engaging with food and “toys” in a novel, busy environment. Instructors will evaluate the videos and select dogs based on their suitability to illustrate the principles of the course. Please host your videos on any platform you prefer (Youtube, Vimeo, etc.) and send link to doc@kynology.org
Virtual Participation – $700
The event will be live-streamed. All attendees, both live and virtual, will have at least one month’s access to recordings of the event. Virtual attendees will have the ability to submit comments and questions; while these inputs may not be reviewed by instructors in real time, they will influence event contents and discussions. Only activities taking place in the main training room at MES (lectures, discussions, and practical training) will be Livestreamed. That said, all of the lectures, the majority of discussions, and a major part of live demonstrations will take place in the main training room and will be livestreamed and recorded.
Note that the event begins on the evening of 13 April with a mixer, and a lecture by Dr. Hilliard.
Ticket Purchase
You must register for an account (or login) before purchasing a ticket. We do this so that you are able to access pre-event resources tied to your event ticket purchase :). For step-by-step instructions on how to do this, check out our FAQ Page. If you’re still having issues, feel free to email us at events@kynology.org.
Returning IN-PERSON attendees of another Kynology event receive a discount (check your email for discount code).