Developing A Relationship With Your Dog

with Michael Ellis

50 Videos | 3 Hours of Content

In this course, Michael Ellis introduces the concept of relationship building and how it is often an under-curated skill in dog training. Michael will teach you how he goes about assessing, diagnosing, and addressing relationship and engagement building skills and their importance to his dog training system.  Michael teaches dog owners how to develop the tools needed before starting to train behaviors. These tools are used to build a great relationship with our dogs. 

This course deals with puppies through adult dogs. It covers: building a communications system with our dog, developing engagement, managing rewards when to introduce behaviors in a training program, training rituals, when & how to introduce the leash and distractions, plus a lot more.

The past 30 years have seen an evolution (or we could say a revolution) on how to approach developing a communication system and a relationship with our dogs. Michael Ellis has been at the forefront of that work.

In this course, Michael details that journey. He has completely changed the way he approaches building his relationships with his dogs.

His methods are not a cookie-cutter approach. As Michael says "every dog is different"  and in this course, he explains how he adapts his work based on what the dog in front of him shows and needs. 

Michael trains with markers and while he reviews the basics of marker training in the course, he moves on and details how he has expanded his use of the marker system. This has resulted in a communication system he uses to build a series of tools that will be used later when he trains behaviors.

Back in the day trainers took a new dog out and started to train behaviors on day one (I.E. Come - Sit - Stay - Heel). That doesn't happen with Michael's system of dog training.

Today, work starts on building the communication system. When that's done he uses that system to build a series of tools our dogs understand and love. When those tools are in place he will introduce behaviors training. By then the dog has already "learned to learn'" and it looks at training as a fun thing to do with his trainer. 

This course was filmed in September 2021 at a seminar we sponsored here at Leerburg. Attendance was limited to 70 people. As it turned out the majority of people attending were professional dog trainers. The training was as valuable to them as it will be to brand new dog trainers. Michael laid out a path to make them better, more successful dog trainers. 

The course content came from Friday, day one in the Michael Ellis seminar held at Leerburg. In closing, I would like to mention that it was filmed in a very large tent on a day that saw terrible weather (windy and rain). This did not affect the overall quality of content.