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 2026! 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?

79 replies on “Exploring Advanced Animal Training Concepts”

Finally got to see the last video a second time! Very interessting. Broadend my prespective. In my mind the most important thing is to se what the animal feel is an negative. T.ex. use the example of a coat. For my dog that is basically a negative thing. She is a warm dog and does not understand the point.
In training (or lack of it??) we see every day people pulling the leach really hard when the dog does something they dont like. Cant see it helps in the long run. Does the same every day. This video explain that very nice.

Thank you for this masterclass! I might join another year. First I have to finish mye Animal emotion course.

Just finished this mini course and I have to say Karolina you have done it again! Just when I think I can’t learn too much more, you slam an entire world of knowledge in front of me and I’m left speechless and wanting more! I unfortunately won’t have the money to take this course this year but I have taken MANY notes from the mini course and I have much to look forward to next year! The discussions here are thought provoking and really make me question the way I go about some of my training. I have so many wonderful things to discuss about some of these topics. Especially to those pertaining to negative reinforcement. I was always open to discussing this topic, as I see all points need to be understood for us to better our training. But I never thought about using it tactfully in my own training! Ah,this excites the behavior nerd in me! lol! Thank you for making this information available to us! You’re an amazing teacher! You really keep me focused and engaged with all of the info! Even if some of it still goes a little over my head!

Why Tetra, it’s great to see you here! That put a big smile on my face – so glad you enjoyed the Masterclass! 🙂

Video 1 has us enjoying the bucket game. It’s a little confusing for my dogs as they got the situation confused with a similar game in which I wait and reward eye contact in the presence of food. I’m impressed (again) by how quickly my dogs have adapted to a new game. I love how much they love to learn.
Video 2 has given me some insights that I’m sure will help with my dogs experience of car travel (an issue which overshadows and detracts from so many potentially enjoyable experiences)
I’m absolutely loving this content – it’s shining a light on many aspects of my life with my dogs and it has gotten me thinking hard about some of my practices.

what start buttons do people use with their horses? I’m interested to learn.

I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for sharing. You presented the info so clearly and concisely!

Hey Karoline:-)
I really enjoyed watching the videos, and would love to take the course, but may have to wait until next year. So I wanted to hear is the extra interviews also included in the next years course?

Hi Martina, the scholarships were not partial, but full – that option is closed now, unfortunately!

Karolina I love this course . it must be the fourth time I’m taking it, but I always learn something ne. and yes, I have you start buttons with my dogs, and my horse makes things so much easier!

Christine, it’s great to hear that you learn something even if watching it for the fourth time..! 🙂

Yes little reminders and heating something in a new way! It awesome thank you for being so generous.

Thank you very much for this free masterclass. Think it’s the third time I’m watching and I’m still learning.

Loving the videos, and a great reminder as a closet nerd that although viewed last year .. we can never assimilate all the information. And there is always new take aways from rewatching the them. Thank you so much for sharing again ❤️
One question promted by the last video. All to often I read of those that use shock collars, that they use it as a punisher AND as a reward, depending on the situation…… I mean how can they even think that is possible … is it just as Daniel kahneman describes in his book thinking fast and slow…. regression to the mean……… ? Is there a better explanation as to what is going on

Hi Jenny, I’ve not heard the argument that the shock can be used as a reward. How is that type of argument typically phrased? 🙂

Can’t find a good example yet on a discussion thread will keep looking, i have seen it reasonably frequently on the naysayers on Zak George’s page. From what I have understood they use it on the lowest settings as I would use a clicker…. these tend be the as I would describe “show off mali trainers” doing competition like ipg .but if challenged asked if they also use it on high settings for say poor recall…. they seem to find other issues to talk about !
Here is one “trainer ” talking about other functions of the collar for R+ !

https://youtu.be/RwljlMMCmkQ?si=3MxLMQlM1Nhsw-vN

There are also some HUGELY miss leading videos widely shared , produced by a Dr uhde claiming that because in the rat foot shock experiments the rats had increased dopamine for successfully avoiding shocks, it can be translated that using avoiding threats as rewarding is a useful method! Completely ignoring the rest of the animals biology!

Ah. Yes. I would assume (just like I talked about in the third video) that for some animals sometimes, being able to successfully avoid or escape an aversive would induce a positive emotional state, such as fiero or accomplishment pride. My concern is with the huge potential fallout when that DOESN’T happen. I discuss that in more detail here: https://illis.se/en/punishment-problems/

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I hear a lot of things that don’t make sense to me, specifically saying that associating putting-the-collar-on with doing-fun-things would constitute positive reinforcement. This is, unless it’s contingent on behaviour, classical conditioning, not operant learning.

And I wouldn’t dispute that. Of course the animal can learn that when the collar comes on, fun things are about to happen. Just as they can also learn that when the collar comes on, bad things are about to happen. My concern would be with the latter, not the former.

Hello Karolina
what would you suggest to do when an excited young dog sees another dog and wants to play, and will not take food because he is over threshold.
love your talks and humour!!

Hello Elizabeth, that doesn’t sound like a good training moment. I would think along two lines: 1) finding a good play partner so that he gets a chance to romp around, and 2) train him to respond to cues in a low-distraction environment and gradually work up to higher distraction environments. Best of luck! 🙂

This has been so interesting! I really love the one about negative reinforcement. I know I am using (undeliberately) R- (when just wearing a leash on my dog), so I really want to understand how I can use it better. Thank you for giving more insights to this! I would really love to take on the Advances Animal Training Course, but the time is not for that right now. I am still catching up on the Animal Emotions Course. So I hope to see you in the other courses when I am done with the first one. Thank you for all your very helpful knowledge and meaningful exemples.

Glad you found this useful, Sarah! And such a wise decision not to join yet another course now – keep your sanity! See you in the AE course! 🙂

This video gives me certainly lots to think over. R- is really difficult for me to understand, so I was a bit confused at the beginning of the video but you made me thinking. I want more! Going to join the full course. Thank you for sharing

Oh, that’s fabulous to hear, Mary! 🙂 *see* you in the big course, then!

Seen the 2. video once more. I came to think of what you say about verbal ques. Not using a word you say when you talk. I see the point but are not to sure about it. When you talk on with your dog or others. I dont think the dog react to the words to much. Speaking in general is just a sound for the dog. If I t.ex say sit by the table to my daughter. The dog would not react to it. But if I say «sit» – and nothing else and my dog is near, she would respons to it. I think one reason is that we use a special voice when we give the dog commands.
Another point. I see people often talk a lot to their animal in Training. Then I think it would be hard for the animal to «find» the commands in all the talking. I try to say as little as possible when training. Her ques is the clicker or the word I use as an alternativ to that as a que for when the reward comes.

Good point – certainly the animal learns in which context certain sounds have meaning and when they don’t. But still, it takes mental processing… I wouldn’t be overly concerned, but if I were to train an emergency recall I would not use a word that’s ever heard in other contexts.

Of course! In emergency it is a different story. Vi use whistle og a physical sign (masking a tunnell with our legs). Dont do those on other occations!

Another thing – we humans need to actually remember the commands! Just for moving bacwards I have 4 verbal signal and one physical – They are all different movements, but backward. I need to actually remember them myself, and then I need ones that give some meaning to me altso.

Yes, both the dog and I have trained start buttons, some deliberately, others inintentionally. Remembering to use them once they’ve been trained is something human doesn’t always do. This is being noted as data and I’m trying to get curious as to
why and how this is occurring. My guesses so far are
1) prior learning unrelated to the contingency of this dog in the human learner/teacher
2) inexperience
3) not enough reinforcement to keep the behaviour going in the human -indeed negative reinforcement if dog showing anxiety in the waiting room of the vets was needed to draw my attention to this….(Now being addressed)

Hi Jennifer – you’re making an important point: that we examine the reasons why we sometimes fail to use’m!

Video 2 – yes it ressonate with things I have learned before. BUT you are very good at explaining it and it is always good to get a reminder.
My former dog was afraid of the vet office. The one I have now has been there multiple times. Usually with som fun Training before hand. Getting goodis and so on from the people at the front desk. Se is happy to go to the vets office. I have realised that I must do this on a regular basis to keep that up after not doing it for a while.

I think the prinsippet for Klickertraining makes it much easier to generalise things. I try not to use a verbal que until the behaviour I want is vell established and generalised in different enviroments.

I just watched video 2, thank you so much for making this stuff so much more clear. I have thoughts about shaping behavior and blocking. How does this work with offering the cues? Usually you start offering the first cue, when that’s learned, the second, but now i am a bit in doubt. Should it be better the other way?

Do you mean that you’re trying to transfer a cue (teach a second cue for the same behaviour)?

if so, the second cue should happen first. If the first cue happens first, the animal will start responding to it. If the second cue happens first, the animal learns that it is a predictor of the first cue. 🙂

Thank you, that’s very clear and logical, but I was think about shaping behavior, training an animal to for example be quiet on a blanket first and then starting a training to lift a paw. But may be that’s not what you meant by blocking, because what I write is not about aversive things?

hmm… blocking is about previous learning impairing new learning, so it doesn’t matter if the context is aversive or not.

Sounds like what you’re describing is a behaviour sequence or chain: the animal first does one behaviour, then a second – in such cases I would suggest having different cues for the different behaviours (and these cues might come from you or the environment, and in the order in which the behaviours must occur). So asking the animal to lie down on a blanket would be behaviour one and paw-lifting behaviour 2. Or relaxed-on-a-blanket could be construed as an antecedent context (stationing behaviour) for multiple other behaviours (paw lifting, lying down etc). Certainly I think that blocking might occur, the animal has learned that “in-this-location-I-do-this” and won’t be offering much of any other behaviour to reinforce (whether we call that blocking or reinforcement history). In such cases it might be a good idea to train the other behaviours in another context first, put them on cue and then give the cue in the first context. Or simply be ready to capture and shape very small approximations in the first context. 🙂

I haven’t trained SB behavior yet, but this video gave me thoughts about training for fireworks and CCD generally. I have been think over this weekend and now I think, am more conscious about the timing in presenting the stimulus and the reward. A lot of timing is very important I think, more conscious, so thank you Karolina.

Nice!
Have not trained startbuttons spesifically, but I have a dog that very much like to deside stuff herself. So t.ex putting on harness- we hold it and she put her head in when she is ready.
I have a question. The thunderstormvideo – the bucket was altso the place where the treats was. Is that smart?

Great question! Having the treats in the bucket facilitates the animal’s focus and interest in the bucket, so it’s easier to quickly train an engaged and focused “look-at-the-bucket”. The things I can think of that would be less optimal about that is if we put the animal in conflict (looking-at-the-bucket being highly reinforcing and trigger-approaching being really scary), or when there’s a measure of overshadowing occurring – the smell of the treat being so salient so the animal doesn’t quite notice the trigger until it’s too close.

For some dogs, the Bucket Game resembles other exercises such as “leave-it” or “impulse control” or “reversed luring” games, in which animals learn to ignore food. In these types of games, the animal learns that “if I ignore the piece of food that mommy’s holding out next to me, I get a delicious treat”. So they’ve learned to ignore appetitive distractions. But in the bucket game, they’re asked to ignore potentially aversive stimuli: “if I ignore the nail clippers that mommy’s holding out next to me, I get a delicious treat”. And this may cause major conflict in the dog – often manifest through very tense body language.

So, assessing body language (muscle tension, breathing rate) is key when playing the bucket game, especially if the animal has a history of these types of “impulse control” games when they’ve learned to studiously ignore treats or toys. Some ways to reduce tension:

– Use an errorless procedure when introducing the Bucket to reduce frustration and tension build-up
– Scatter the food so that the dog goes into sniffing mode; that allows for more behaviour, is calming in and of itself and extends the time to the next repetition.
– Make sure that there’s free food/toys available at the alternative station to allow for more choices.
– Omit the clicker, in order to bring down arousal.
– Consider choosing another start button behaviour than looking-at-a-bucket (one that doesn’t resemble the “I sit still and ignore appetitive distractions” behaviour)

Thank you! My reaction was if it is smart to put the goodies in the bucket that is altso supposed to be where it says «ok» to hearing the sound. The danger of the treat overshadow the thing it is afraid of. If is a little like putting a treat in the hand of a person that the dog is reluctant to go near.

I’d say that the important thing isn’t whether the treats are in the bucket, but rather how the handling is introduced – and that we monitor body language! 🙂

I am so excited for this! Im a vet tech working toward specializing in behavior and I want to train like this for veterinary care <3

My oh my! I can watch all your videos and courses over and over and still be amazed by all the helpful and incredible information. I thought I was a behavior junkie before, but you’ve made me an addict! LOL Thank you!

Hi John, the publication isn’t automatic so I have to publish manually. It will take me a while, but when it’s done I’ll send an email! 🙂

Hi Myrthe, the videos will be released on the 11th, 13th and 17th of April – and once published you can access them anytime – until the 24th! 🙂

Hi Karolina – it’d really like to access these videos and thank you for making them available. However, when I click on the link it says the page can’t be reached. Can you help please?

Thank you Karolina. Your videos are always informative and beneficial to help understand our animals better. Take care

Unfortunately I will be on holiday from 12th April until 30th and will not have any internet, so I’ll miss the chance to watch

That’s unfortunate! But I hope you have a wonderful holiday! <3

I’ve added you to the list, Susanne – check your inbox for the welcome message! 🙂

Just for you to be aware 11th and 13th are around the Jewish Passover and not sure how long the videos will be but unless they are available until at least 15th or 16th April, for those who observe the Passover festival, it will be difficult to listen to the videos which I very much want to, can’t use devices during certain days of Passover, and I so don’t want to miss your videos

Thanks for the heads up Ruth – the videos will be available until April 24th, so hopefully there should be enough time! 🙂

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