Principles Of Animal Behavior

[Cecelia Seiner]

TheIAABC Foundation Animal Behavior Consulting Principles & Practice Course is a unique twelve-week multi-module course providing a comprehensive overview of the many facets of animal behavior consulting for all species. The course is appropriate for experienced behavior consultants and practitioners as well as those newer to the field with a strong interest in animal behavior. The course features weekly online meetings with a Course Mentor discussing each learning module.

Learning Science; Applied Behavior Analysis; Functional Analysis and Intervention Design; Biology; Ethology; Genetics; Marker Training; Case Studies; Desensitization and Counter Conditioning; Program Management; Behavioral Medicine; LIMA Practices; TAGteach; Business Promotion and Social Media Strategies; Interpreting Scientific Studies; the Human Side of the Equation; Sheltering, Fostering and Enrichment; Animal Welfare Science; Compassion Fatigue

Homework Assignment: 6-week ongoing assignment. First stage due 2 weeks after launch of module. A studysubject for the assignment is needed that will be available to the student for the entire 6 weeks. This subject canbe an animal or a human or even the student himself/herself.

At this time, there is no Auditing option for Animal Behavior Consulting: Principles & Practice.

Cancellation Policy: We will refund 90% up to 30 days pre-event. A 50% refund will be available up to 15 days pre-event. After these deadlines, no refunds will be issued.

Dr. Erin Jones completed her PhD at the University of Canterbury in animal studies with a focus on the human-dog relationship. She works as a researcher/writer at the university as well, and is involved in various dog-related research projects.Erin is a certified professional dog trainer (CPDT-KA and IAABC-ADT), Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC), and accredited dog behaviour consultant with Companion Animals New Zealand. She owns and operates the Merit Dog Project with a primary focus on helping fearful, anxious and reactive dogs.Erin is the Science Content Editor for the IAABC Foundation Journal as well as Education Initiatives Lead for the IAABC Foundation. She is also a committee member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers New Zealand.

The Alliance of Therapy Dogs (ATD) consists of over 17,000 dedicated individuals and their furry companions as members. Their members bring joy and smiles to a world where a smile can make all the difference.

Innovational shelter adoption programs keep a finger on the pulse of trends in adopter preference. Paying careful attention and adapting to how people make decisions about the pets they bring home can make a significant difference in length of stay, adoption, and return rates for animal shelters. One noteworthy trend is the dramatic increase in disintermediated consumer decision-making, indicating an increasing preference for the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain, including that of shelter animal adoption.

At Friends For Life, we have designed and implemented an adopter-centered adoption counseling program based on a disintermediated approach similar to that of online dating algorithms. This unique, choice-based approach in pre- and post-adoption counseling has resulted in a marked improvement in adoption matching metrics and has more than doubled the rate of adopter feedback, allowing us to provide adopters with timely counseling when they are experiencing troubles with their newly adopted companion animals and thereby preventing adoption returns.

Modern behavior modification protocols for use in fearful, under-socialized cats have traditionally had a respondent conditioning focus aimed at pairing the presence of humans, their proximity, and contact with appetitive stimuli. If the learner demonstrates friendly behaviors towards humans as the result of a respondent conditioning based approach, it is as part of a change in emotional response.

Alternatively, the goal of constructional approaches to socialization is primarily to shape friendly behaviors directly and any change in emotional response is secondary. For example, instead of pairing petting with treats, a constructional approach may have the learner trained to approach, target, and then rub up against humans for food rewards. There are several advantages to this approach: it allows the cat more control over exposures to fear stimuli, it helps exposures to remain at a moderate level of intensity, and it shapes desired behaviors directly.

This presentation outlines an approach to building friendly behaviors in fearful shelter cats using the training of simple, repetitive motions, inspired by Movement Puzzles, a training concept created by Christina Young intended to build confidence in dogs. This method has successfully been applied in a shelter setting as part of a socialization program for extremely fearful cats and has been used to help fearful cats engage with their surroundings and humans.

Interactive shelter dogs and cats who approach visitors in a friendly manner are much preferred by potential adopters. In contrast, animals who demonstrate fear-related behaviors towards unfamiliar people have an increased shelter length of stay, as much as three times longer than that of their interactive counterparts.

Behavioral interventions for fearful shelter animals are often limited to environmental management and patience. Other behavior modification protocols lean heavily on respondent learning strategies. Rarely do shelter behavior teams focus on training fearful animals to present specific behaviors related to friendly greeting, though there is some evidence that more constructional approaches can be effective.

This presentation introduces a novel, effective, and simple ritualized introduction method that trains shelter dogs and cats to routinely display friendly behaviors towards new people. This protocol has been successful as a component of a socialization program for fearful shelter animals and demonstrates a wider application for helping companion dogs and cats comfortably meet unfamiliar guests at home.

Adrienne Hovey is a freelance writer dedicated to helping pet professionals put their best foot forward when it comes to the written word. She has an undergraduate degree in biology from Mount Holyoke College, and spent five years as a veterinary radiology and nuclear medicine technician at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston. In 2008, Adrienne attended a four-month canine training and behavior program in Texas and then returned home to start her own training business. However, she quickly realized that writing and editing for dog trainers was her true calling. She served as managing editor, and then editor-in-chief, of the APDT Chronicle of the Dog from 2010 to 2015. She has been content editor of the IAABC Foundation Journal since 2015.

Erin is a CPDT-KA, IAABC-ADT, CDBC, an Accredited Dog Behaviour Consultant with Companion Animals New Zealand, and has a MSc in Anthrozoology. She holds a PhD in Animal Studies from the University of Canterbury with a primary research focus on the human-dog connection, behaviour of companion dogs, and society.

Join us at the annual IAABC Member Meeting for cocktails and light food as we connect with our behavior community. Share your ideas, win prizes and learn all about the happenings at the IAABC. We hope to see you there.

What happens to the horses if humans quit? In this session you will experience a paradigm shift about how to successfully approach and transform the delicate dynamic between horse, trainer and client. The ramifications of our clients leaving positive reinforcement can be detrimental for us all. How can we avoid this?

Growing research indicates that overwhelming emotion plays a key role in emotional and behavioral challenges across a wide range of mental health disorders in humans. Many of us have observed that this appears to be the case in dogs as well. This webinar will examine the connection between emotional dysregulation, mental health, and behavior and discuss how this can be applied to dogs. We will also discuss various science-based approaches to improving emotional regulation in animals as a pathway to preventing and addressing unwanted behaviors.

Using positive reinforcement to train horses is exciting. Training the horse to respond differently to different cues stimulus control can help increase precision and success. In this demonstration I will demonstrate an errorless discrimination training protocol to the common practical concern of horses mugging for food. Errorless discrimination can improve training success and reduce errors, resulting in a happy horse and human.

This presentation will cover common clinical presentations, differentials, and treatment options for inter-cat aggression. We will discuss redirection aggression, social status aggression, territorial aggression, fear aggression and more! There will also be a few case examples to demonstrate diagnoses and management of complex cases.

This presentation will cover a wide variety of behavior issues that can relate to nutrition. We will discuss inappetence, excessive surface licking, fly biting and pica, as they relate to gastrointestinal health. This will include clinical signs, differentials, and treatment options for various problems.

This presentation will address being qualified and accepted as an expert witness for courts in the US and in the UK. Both presenters are accepted experts in many courts, and this seminar will introduce the process, the standards for expert opinion, and then give examples of good and bad testimony in a practical demonstration.

Helen Howell is a forensic behaviourist, researcher, and leading UK expert witness. A former police detective with 16 years police service, Helen, following her retirement from the police, pursued a career in animal behaviour.

Helen graduated with a first-class honours degree in Canine Behaviour and Management and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Lincoln where her subject of research is assessing the risk of human-directed aggression in dogs.

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