Episode #21 Pat Nolan "If we don't understand the principles we will be slaves to the techniques"

We are excited about this episode as Pat is someone we both admire and respect. His work across the dog community speaks for itself. He is a true gentleman and man of integrity. We know you'll enjoy the ease at which he describes what he does and why he does it. His experiences come from a lifetime of training puppies and dogs.

Pat Nolan has worked in animal venues for 47 years, gaining a broad range of experience. He has trained retrievers for field trials, detection canines for military, police, and anti-poaching work, birds of prey for falconry, and deer, dogs, and other animals for commercials. As a seasoned trainer and consultant, he is passionate about advancing the art and science of canine training. In addition to his current training for units in the special operations community, he is involved in training canines for research projects as well as the development of specialized equipment for detection training. When not training, Pat enjoys family, travel, and photography.

• Early experience in Schutzhund
• Was advised a living could be made training retrievers
• Field trials
• Learned ecollar skills with retrievers
• Forced retrieve
• Dogs learn how to turn the pressure off
• Ecollars do not provide directional information
• Approached by military after honing his craft with retrievers
• Directionals
• Go, stop when we tell you, but not until we tell you and change directions
• Pressure response
• Pull and push
• No room for anthropomorphic thinking
• Evaluate training from the dogs perspective
• Taking direction at great distances
• Having a dog deliver a package
• Platform with a camera on the dog
• Turning pressure off by moving away from the handler
• 4 consequences to influence behavior "4 quadrants"
• 90 to 95% of ecollar pressure is used to "push" behavior
• Only 3 settings on an ecollar Not enough, too much, and just right.
• Introduction to the ecollar
• Looking for an indication that the dog felt it.
• Commanders challenge
• Dogtra demonstrations, putting tricks on the dogs
• Can you train a dog to put a package on a target 100 meters away?
• SF groups
• Falconry
• Parallels between training hawks and training dogs
• Much better dog trainer because of the experience with hawks
• Doing the best for your dog
• Are you ever done training your dog?
• Controlling consequences of actions
• Training in drive.
• Mindset shift "I can't make the dog do anything, but I can control the consequences"
• Picking the right dog
• Executive function skills
• Good executive function skills are better predictors of success than high IQ
• The dogs drive has be channeled.
• Executive functions skills, drive, and environmental stability
• Puppies learn at a rapid rate
• Developing retriever pups
• From the retriever pup up

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If you want Rich and Howard to come to your location we can make it happen. They have come together to provide workshops on any K9 related topic you like. Open to law enforcement and civilian attendees. Contact Howard at hjyk91@gmail.com or 704-473-9885.