Dr. Dunbar's Off-Leash Reliability & Games Workshops have brought back some sparkle, some excitement, and some razzle-dazzle to pet dog training, all while helping owners achieve huge improvements in reliability with their dogs. Training your dog while off-leash in an exciting and distracting environment makes it much more likely that they will follow your instructions in other distracting situations as well.
Games are extremely enjoyable for dogs and they often bring out the best performances. Dogs are highly motivated because their owners are highly motivated, excited and animated.
All of Dr. Dunbar's games are designed to improve the quality of the relationship between dogs and their people and each individual exercise or game is specifically designed to fine-tune essential ingredients of your dog's training repertoire. The prospect of playing games motivates owners to practice. For some owners, heeling and sit-stay homework is not very exciting, but many will stay up to the wee hours to practice for Doggy Dancing or Musical Chairs.
In addition, playing games is an enjoyable and non-threatening way to objectively quantify performance and fine-tune all basic obedience skills, including attention, position changes, stays, following, heeling, and precision work.
Turning training into games and quantifying responses with a stopwatch or tape measure, enables pet dog trainers to remind owners to celebrate with the dog each time they surpass a personal best. Nothing motivates owners more than when they see that they are improving, even with baby steps, and nothing advertises that you're a great pet dog trainer than the dog's progressive improvement.
Games make it easy and fun to quantify behavior and training, and quantifying your dog's responses allows you to prove whether or not your training methods are working, exactly how well they are working and when you surpass a personal best performance.
Veterinarian, animal behaviorist, and dog trainer, Dr. Ian Dunbar received his veterinary degree and a Special Honors degree in Physiology & Biochemistry from the Royal Veterinary College (London University) plus a doctorate in animal behavior from the Psychology Department at UC Berkeley, where he researched the development of social hierarchies and aggression in domestic dogs.
He has authored numerous books and DVDs about puppy/dog behavior and training, including AFTER You Get Your Puppy, How To Teach A New Dog Old Tricks and the SIRIUS® Puppy Training video.
In 1982, Dr. Dunbar designed and taught the world's very first off-leash puppy socialization and training classes -- SIRIUS® Puppy Training. Subsequently, he created and developed the San Francisco SPCA's Animal Behavior Department, the American Kennel Club's Gazette "Behavior" column, which he wrote for seven years, and the K9 GAMES®, which were first held in San Francisco in 1993 and continue as annual events in Japan and France. He hosted the popular UK television series Dogs With Dunbar for five seasons and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, including the Today Show (US) and Dash Village (Japan).
