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FDSA Training Camp 2023

Barbara Lloyd

About Barbara Lloyd

In my heart of hearts I’m a teacher. Many of my students go on to achieve amazing things with their dogs because my first and foremost goal is being the best coach/teacher I can be to my students and their dogs.

I believe this is the case because I am a creative thinker, with a flare for fun.

When I’m teaching a skill to a student/dog team I work from a triad.

  1. What is the human student’s learning style?
  2. What is the dog’s learning style?
  3. I present the information to that team to meet the needs of both learning styles.

When I write lectures and create videos, I consciously explain the concepts in different ways to reach different learning styles.

I take the time explain why one way might work for your dog vs a conventional approach.

I’m very process oriented, with end goals in mind, and I make sure we have fun during that process.

Sometimes the process does not “look” like what one would expect it to, to reach an end goal, but I won’t steer you wrong — there is always a good reason, and I’m always willing to discuss it.

At the end of the day, I’m way more concerned about my students meeting their training goals and being successful with their dogs than I ever am about my own.

My own dogs are titled in Herding, Tricks, Rally, Team, and Agility. I have had multiple High in Trials in Herding with multiple dogs that include pedigreed dogs and my mutt, Dori Time.

In herding some of my recent CKC accomplishments are: My Pearl Girl was the #7 Border Collie in Canada, the Giant Schnauzer I train and handle, Serra/Dragon, was the #1 Giant Schnauzer & #3 Working Dog, and my mutt, Dori Time, was the #1 CKC Mutt.

2023  camp sessions

Saturday, Oct. 7

11:00AM - 12:40PM

Expo Hall C

Cognitive Challenges for Developing Resilience & Grit in Your Dog

Experience Level: See Description

A creative hands on workshop developed by Barbara Lloyd the creator of “The Nimue Box Challenge” to test your dog’s ability to problem solve!

This workshop will consist of a series of Cognitive Challenges that range from easy to varying degrees of complexity. The main goal of the lab will be helping your understand how your dog reasons through how to solve a challenge and access a reward.

We will also discuss your dog’s learning style in contrast to your learning style and how that impacts your training sessions with your dog, as well as how to improve your training sessions with your dog via a better understanding of how your dog processes information and problems solves.

Decoding what your dog is telling you as they work through the challenges will be discussed in depth in order to give you a better understanding of how to harness your dog’s skills to train more efficiently.

This workshop is suitable for puppies and dogs all the way up to adulthood.

For young dogs and sensitive dogs this workshop help build resiliency, grit, and confidence. Adult dogs will gain more sustained focus and thoughtfulness.

Participants will be instructed on how to set up the challenges and then allow their dog time to solve the challenge.

Each participant can choose how much assistance to give their dog, and part of the class will be outlining and discussing why or why not you choose to simplify the task for your dog.

As the instructor I will give you feedback on what I see your dog doing, how to play to your dog’s strengths, how to improve a particular problem solving skill and how to make this relevant in other areas of training.

Sunday, Oct. 8

1:40PM - 3:30PM

Expo Hall A

Drop It Like It’s Hot: The Reverse Retrieve

Experience Level: Novice & Above

We spend a lot of time teaching our dogs to retrieve items to us and to hold onto items, and then when we want them to take an object away from us and drop it in the middle of nowhere our dogs are understandably confused.

In this Drop It Like It’s Hot hands-on workshop I will teach you how to train your dog that taking an object away from you and dropping it on cue is just as rewarding as giving you an object.

It is a step by step process that will teach your dog on cue:

  • “Drop it Like It’s Hot”
  • With the handler at a distance
  • And then return to the handler having left the object behind

Prerequisites: your dog must be able to pick up an object off the floor

Supplies

  1. Small floor target (a fit paws silicon paw target is a good example; we we likely have a few available if you  do not have one with you)
  2. Food your dog will do backflips for
  3. Clicker or other marker, a whistle or a duck caller
  4. 5 or 6 objects your dog likes to put in their mouth