Exploring Advanced Animal Training Concepts

Sorry, access to this free training has expired.

The Masterclass was a success – here’s what people had to say about it:

  • Christa: Wonderful!!! In name of all animals that will be happier because of this I thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is so needed!
  • Johanna: I have just seen the video 1 of your masterclass! Usually I don’t get past the first 8-10 minutes of online classes – but completed yours. The class was well presented, super interesting and you are an outstanding speaker! Thank you so much ❤️
  • Gillian:  I feel like a big lightbulb lit up when I saw the first video.
  • Lisa: I’ve just watched the second video and all is so clear now! I used to get so muddled in my thinking and this had helped enormously in clarifying all these concepts – which had previously been beyond my understanding!! I am so grateful to you ❤️❤️
  • Jaime: I didn’t realize I was my own barrier until I watched video #2.
  • Brian: O-M-G. Karolina, you have such an amazing way of making the ‘nerdiest’ of information relevant and inspiring.
  • Jeannine: Video 3 is amazing!! I feel like I need to rewatch it several times. 
  • Christa: Thank you so much! You turned me into a bigger training nerd than I already was and I love it.
  • Holly: I loved the mini-course videos! Hands down the best I’ve ever seen.
  • Judy: This is my fourth time catching this presentation. Needless to say, I learn something new and better each time.
  • Judith: Watch this everyone! I learned more in this free masterclass than in many a paid program!

The Masterclass will be back in 2027! Meanwhile, here’s a couple of the blog posts that my readers find the most thought-provoking:

20 problems with punishment in animal training
What can we learn from Cesar Millan?

75 replies on “Exploring Advanced Animal Training Concepts”

Thank you Karolina, i just managed to look at all three videos before they disappear. Again, many eye opener and moments of “oh yes, that’s why this never worked” and “here is the right way to approach the issue” . I love your classes!

Thank you for the excellent explanation on how to teach the start button. I’ve had trouble finding instructions and you broke it down into small, precise steps explaining why we should do it that way.

I found Video 3 on negative reinforcement particularly interesting, especially how it was unpacked and contextualised in practical scenarios, thank you Karolina. I’m looking forward to exploring this further in the AAT course I’ve enrolled in and taking my animal training knowledge and skills to the next level.

Great to hear that it resonated, Nicolette! See you in the full course! 🙂

A great Video 2 and thank you Karolina for the handy e-book reference. I find that in practice, in puppy and dog classes I deliver, some clients share examples of their puppy showing signs of ‘separation anxiety’. And as you so rightly put it and I agree, some puppies do show conditioned agitation when pre-departure cues (eg. keys, shoes) reliably predict owner absence. And that using learned irrelevance —repeated non-reinforced presentation of these cues, interspersed with occasional departures — weakens the CS–US contingency and reduces anticipatory arousal. And as such I think a good practical reminder to be intentional with stimulus presentation: what doesn’t happen after a cue can be just as important as what does.

oh yes, absolutely! And as I mentioned, this type of training will not resolve the separation anxiety per se…

Am enjoying the masterclass series so far only watched video 1. I do a sort of start button. I use a snuffle mat. She happily comes and sits on the mat I show her the brush then deliver a couple of treats on the mat then while she is is eating them I take brush away. When she has finished eating and sniffing and looks up I repeat the process haven’t got to actually touching her with the brush I notice she leans away so I make it easier for her after about four reps I scatter some treats on the mat and stand up and walk away she eats the treats and when she has finished walks off and I put mat away. Is this ok or is there a better way

Hi Jill, that sounds like you’re in phase 1, of pairing the scary-thing-at-a-distance with a treat. And that perhaps the “look up” behaviour could be a potential start button behaviour, if it’s clear enough? It’s important that she learns that the brush doesn’t show up until she gives the SB behaviour. Best of luck! 🙂

I wanted to let you know how helpful the e-book for video 2 was for me. I take notes as I listen and this helped me to keep up with your presentation and add notes without having to stop and relisten as often. I did know some of the concepts but listening to your explanations and examples made them much clearer. Thank you!

Oh great, I’m so glad to hear that! Thanks for letting me know! 🙂

Thank you for sharing, for the instructors course where I teach I followed the AAT couse a few years ago and I’m still learning from this mini-course now.
After the second video I have a question that needs a bit of explaining.
We teach the pups the most thing by lure and reward. But we also use a clickword. We know that a dog mostlikely doesn’t even hear the word when there’s food in front of it’s nose but we do it anyway to make the newly handlers a bit acquaintet with the use of a clicker.
Here’s the question: would it make more sense to teach the dog first to follow an empty hand and then lure with the empty hand? Or will the empty hand still overschadow the clickword? I see the empty hand as a target stick.
Btw Dogs must be fabulous to learn anyway desite all the things people do against the learning principles

hmm… how do you use your click word? You write that they won’t hear it if they have food in front of their nose… but if it’s supposed to act as a secondary reinforcer (as if it were a clicker), the sound should occur in a vacuum, without food present. In other words, behaviour–> click –> food. Not behaviour –> food –> click or behaviour –> food/click. Otherwise it will be backwards or simultaneous conditioning, and the animal won’t learn to pay attention to the clicker or the click word.

I’m not sure I understand “follow an empty hand and then lure with an empty hand”. In my mind, luring involves food (which is faded over time).

If the hand appears, and the dog follows the hand, then the hand occurs before the behaviour, in the antecedent phase. The click should occur after behaviour, marking the transition to the consequence phase of the ABC-loop (A for antecedents, what happens before behaviour, B for behaviour and C for consequences). I write more about luring (and other ways to get behaviour) in this blog post: https://illis.se/en/7-ways-to-get-behaviour/

Thank you. I’ll look into your blog!
It’s not easy to explain in another language but I think you understoot it correctly.
Thanks again, I love the way you explain it all.
I followed the Emotions-seminar in the Netherlands too, big fan

Thank you for this masterclass, Mrs.Westlund! I was hoping to submit an application towards the scholarship, but was not able to find a way to do this on a course page. Can you please help me with this. I have just sent an email to your husband about it.

Hmm video 2 – I think you can solve a lot with learning the value of a klicker. Then you have a thing that is not easily forgotten in any situations.
But of course – you have to use it wisely with all the prinsiples for that.

Very interesting 3rd video. Thank you.
I am confused. When you use the negative reinforcer on your schema with the red line I would call it “aversive stiumulus” and not R-. The reinforcer is the consequence of the desired behavior and in this case it is the removing of the aversive stiumulus. So for me the red cercle is the unwanted behavior, the red line is the aversive stimulus/P+ that follows the unwanted behavior, the desired behavior is emitted, the R- is given (removal of the aversive stimulus) and can be followed by R+
Did I didn’t understand correctly the schema ??? Thank you ! I loved the three videos

Hi Isabelle, glad you enjoyed the videos! Yes, the red line is an aversive stimulus, most people wouldn’t call it a negative reinforcer. I choose to do so to illustrate the difference from a positive reinforcer, but you’re correct in that it’s not until it’s been removed contingent on behaviour that the reinforcer part of the equation comes into play! 🙂

Hi ! I really enjoyed this first video. I have attended a husbandry-class and trained chin-rest with my curly. She finds greeting situations difficult and often afraid of men probably due to bad experience and lack of sosialication as a pup unfortunately. I have started to use this start button to train her to accept and feel safe beeing touched by strangers. It works well, I give her a treat when she says “enough” also, and some people questions this, so great to listen to you – making me certain I do the right thing 🙂

I have a reactive dog, I think I mixed the counterconditioning up. I learned to reached for the treat before the dog saw the trigger (other dog). The last time a dog stood unexpectedly in front of us, and my dog was gone. Luckily the owner of the other dog calmed my dog down and my dog returned. I am very desperate about his reactivity. Thank you Karolina for this advice!

So glad you found it helpful, Gudrun. It may seem like a small and insignificant detail, but the timing can make a world of a difference! 🙂

I love your masterclasses! This is the third time around on this one 🙂 after the first time, a couple of years ago now, I tried to teach my worried rescue dog, Lyra, a start button so that I could brush her – which she hated. I did just as you taught, building a rhythm with treats, then introducing the brush. Gradually she began to touch the brush with her nose, which I took as a start button, did a few strokes, paused, gave a treat, showed the brush again, and so on. Interestingly, after some time, when I showed her the brush, she went to sit on a mat – not her bed or anything she had been conditioned to – and looked expectantly. I showed her the brush, she touched it with her nose, and I brushed her.
I thought it was so interesting that she chose the SB behaviour so that , if she sat on that particular mat, it wad OK to brush her.
Then we moved house and lots of things changed so we probabky need to start again:-)

Interesting! Maybe there was some classical conditioning going on, associating the brush and the mat separately with warm and fuzzy feelings, and putting the two together?

I use the ‘start’ button approach for all grooming procedures my dogs have to ‘put up with’. To this I have added several stages: a mat, which is built up with lots of positive reinforcement and serves as an emotional buffer. I also use Chirac Patel’s Bucket Game. This combination is for particularly unpleasant procedures. The mat alone is sufficient for things like brushing or cleaning ears.
This way of communicating with the dogs is very important to me. If they say “no”, they shouldn’t lose out – so when they say “no”, they receive the same rewards as when they say “yes”: food into a so-called exit target.
Nevertheless, there are things we can only do if we work without their consent – they find nail clipping so unpleasant that I haven’t been able to get them to cooperate with it so far. Oh well!

Thanks for sharing, Andrea! Could you explain to us what an exit target is? 🙂

Sure!
An exit target is the point where the good things are (food, toys) – the things my dogs can look forward to when we take a break during training or when they want to pause.
It’s enough for them to look at the exit target to signal to me that they want a break, or they can simply go over there.
For me, that’s valuable information.
When I work with food (which is usually the case), they get the same food there as they do during training.

OK, so a type of Stop Button behaviour, then! Great! Thanks for sharing! 🙂

Thank you again for offering the Masterclass. I learn so much from listening to you and so enjoy the way you present the information

Actually, my dog taught me about Start and Stop Buttons before I heard of the term! I trim his nails with a grinder. He doesn’t love it, but he’s always enthousiastically willing to play along, as long as there is cucumber pieces or blueberries involved! He gets a treat after each nail and we take our time, and stop when he shows signs that he now longer wants to continue. I used to ask him if he was ready to continue with the next nail and one time, he pawed at the grinder. I took it as a « Go ahead, I’m ready » and it became our Start Button! By default, it also became our Stop Button when I ask if he’s ready and he doesn’t touch the grinder. I say « Ok, we’re done » and I give him the remainding cucumber pieces.

Not done a startbutton behaviour as you describe it. But when I need to comb her in connection with spredning twice a year. I find the brush. she come to me without me asking. I let her explore it. Give her a treat. Start brusing on the side that is close. She shift position. I brush there. give a treat sometimes. When she walks away. I let her. Ask her to come back if she wants. Repeat until she show that she is finished for now. Tross a treat

Sounds like wonderful communication! If she walks away before you are done, does she still get treats? 🙂

I toss a treat to her or we play to shake it off.
It is short sessions in start of season, then they get longer.
It does not get systimaticly because she desides where to brush.
She actually made a mark at the brush yesterday evening (was on the table). Tok a little session. Her stopsignal then was to go belly up. That is altso of course ok.

Lovely! Does she also get treats when walking away even if you’re not quite finished? (in other words, are you reinforcing the “no”?):-)

Yes! Sometimes she pick her reward for no by finding a toy or a stick or something so we play a little.

The belly up “no” – she get a bellyrub on her request. Usually presenting the back leg/hip for a massage.

So I guess without thinking about it I have actually done start/stop-button out of it 🙂

HI Karolina, great to be back and thank you – this was a really insightful masterclass AAT Video 1.

I think a start button remains a genuine signal of consent when the learner can meaningfully withdraw and that withdrawal is respected. Too me this requires us to look beyond the behaviour itself and consider emotional indicators, and to build in opportunities for the learner to opt in again.

Distinguishing start buttons as relating to what we are asking the animal to do, and mands as what the animal is asking for, supports clearer two-way, collaborative communication and lower-stress training.

I’m particularly interested in how to integrate these concepts into structured puppy classes – balancing training goals with maintaining genuine choice – and how to support caregivers to apply this in practice.

I’m looking forward to first applying this with my own dogs, then thoughtfully in my puppy classes and behaviour work.

Hi Nicolette, thanks for sharing your thoughts! sounds like a plan! 🙂

No. Start buttons are about things that might be uncomfortable to the animal, or things we want them to do; they communicate that they’re ready to do it, or be exposed to it. Mands are requests that the animal makes. I like to think that SBs are about what we want, and Mands are about what the animal wants. I discuss this in more detail in the FB group! 🙂

Great Masterclass. So lovely to see the communication between animal and trainer. Gentle training. The animals are fully involved, watching, waiting, relaxed and participating. Motivating. Who wouldn’t want to communicate with their animal like that.

Thank you for helping us help our homeless dogs at our shelter. Your guidance will make their stay less stressful and give them a better chance at adoption sooner!

The videos are prerecorded, so once they’re published you have access until the 30th! 🙂

This will be my second time, seeing this master class. As a veterinary nurse and trainer, who takes a welfare first approach, I love the information that you share!

Loving the Animal Emotions course and looking forward to this one too. You have a wonderful teaching technique

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