Canine Performance School

Show Dog U is an ongoing, training group designed to teach you how to bring out the star potential in your dog!  Show Dog U is the training arm of The Dog Saving Network, a not for profit organization that uses fun and educational shows and videos to help raise awareness for homeless animals and to highlight the importance of training. This course is great for people who:

Care about homeless animals and want to make a difference

Would want to train their dog to star in their own commercial or be part of a TV show

Want  to acquire an in-depth knowledge of positive reinforcement training from an industry professional

Are interested in performing with their dog on stage someday

Want to do something special with their dog …and much more

Course Goals

The course is designed to teach students an advanced level of positive reinforcement training skills, knowledge, theories and their applications pertaining to creating a performance dog.  Geared towards people who are committed to learning more about training (students, people interested in making training a career, enthusiasts), Show Dog U is an intensive course that will show you how to get more from your dog in a performance setting.  This hands on course allows people to gain valuable experience while building a solid training foundation and strengthening the relationship with their dog.  Stay with us long enough and you should be able to train any behavior their dog is physically capable of doing and will be ready for stage and screen!

Course Objectives

1.     Acquire an in-depth understanding of operant conditioning skills, terms, principles and applications

2.     Understand how to properly build, add in and maintain  solid cues

3.     Understand how to develop a proper training plan in order to train any behavior

4.     Appreciate when to advance to their next training step and have the confidence to know when to do so for all future training

5.     Learn how to pinpoint the cause of behavioral breakdowns and how to fix them

6.     Teach a variety of new skills and tricks with their dogs and have fun while doing so

7.     Pursue a career as a professional, positive reinforcement trainer

8.     Learn to apply constructive feedback to speed up the training process

9.     Troubleshoot problem behaviors such as aggression in a logical, systematic fashion that yields results

10.  Learn how to properly counter-condition and desensitize their dogs to a variety of stimuli including, but not limited to, stage/screen sets and productions and large audiences

Class size is limited.  Prospective students must be able to participate and pass an audition with their dog as part of the application process