This index for the Beginner's Course is part of the Dog Science
Dog Training Workshop - an element of the Dog Science Network
For a complete description of the beginning curriculum:
Go to the Introduction to the Beginning Workshop
Comprehensive Behavioral Conditioning for Dogs
The Beginner's Dog Training Workshop is Divided Into Four Sections:
Section One: Dog Training Basics
This twelve-page section will teach you how to socialize your dog to proper community standards, while simultaneously transforming the animal into a companionable housemate using happenstance training, which is a reactive approach in which you wait and respond to what your dog does after he does it. Indeed, in this phase of the workshop you will learn to use operant conditioning to infuse your dog with your sense of right and wrong, along with an unshakeable sense of what he is and is not supposed to do.
This component is intended to provide the busy reader with a streamlined blueprint that can be used to raise a happy, well-socialized dog, accompanied by just enough theory to allow you to get the procedures to work for you. The first three pages will provide you with essential background information about how dogs develop and the factors that impact your dog's ability to learn, while the last nine pages will provide you with actual instruction.
Section Two: Behavioral Theory and Procedural Strategies
While the first component of the beginning workshop tells you how to teach your dog what he is and is not supposed to do in any given situation, this five-page section focuses on dog training itself, as it goes into some detail as to how we know what will and will not work with your dog, as well as how we are able to say with such certainty what will and will not traumatize your dog.
This section, which contains a discussion of the inter-related nature of behavioral procedures, will familiarize you with the theoretical infrastructure that underlies CBC for dogs, and will better enable you to successfully utilize that inexorable technology of behavior.
Section Three: A History and a Comparison of CBC for Dogs
This four-page section focuses on the history of dog training while taking special care to draw a distinction between Comprehensive Behavioral Conditioning for Dogs, which is a true Skinnerian approach, and what has come to be known as Positive Dog Training or Positive Reinforcement Training, which is at best, a pale, inefficient, politically correct deviation that falls far short of being a genuine behavioral methodology.
Section Four: The Auxiliary Pages
The first three sections of the beginning workshop are comprised of continuous narratives that each trace a sequenced series of ideas as they flow along in order, to their logical conclusion. In contrast, this last section is a compilation of pages containing diverse information that can be read in any order without fear of losing a continuous thread of thought.