Insight into teaching a workshop

I just taught a Fido Come workshop this past Saturday at WorkinPaws in Hollister, CA.  It was a very chilly morning.  First off- this topic can become a 4 day workshop as John Rogerson does it so trying to cram key points in 2.5hr was a challenge.  Where to start?  What do you teach?  What's involved in putting a workshop together? 

Since there is so much to cover and the participants come from different aspects and have different needs I had to make sure I hit key points during the workshop. Planning takes place at least 2 months prior to the actual workshop date. I do a lot of research on what other trainers are doing and teaching and then start putting together a rough outline of games and topics. Next is deciding how to conduct/run the workshop. I borrowed a Bob Bailey approach: lecture- demo mechanical skill- have people practice - then repeat.  This gives the dogs down time and allows the owners to be able to focus on the lecture.

I had to make sure I had some basic foundation games and then gradually increase the challenge of the exercise.  Some participants work in agility, some were just pet owners wanting to learn, some had issues with prey chasing - so I wanted to give people the knowledge of how to build challenges, know what to do when you have failure and how not to 'poison' the cue.

As the day got closer, I put together a final outline of lecture topics and games with a time-line so it keeps me on track while I'm giving the workshop. So there's at least a weeks worth of dedicated work putting it together. There's a lot prep work to putting a workshop together. Then it was D-Day. 

Susan started off pointing aspect of the property - and I quickly covered safety aspects of how to handle their dogs. I started with a short lecture because I wanted to get people up an active very quickly. 1st to keep their interest but more importantly to assess each team and get them moving to warm up. Then another lecture then more games, more lecture and more games. 

I had the help of an assistant - Tracy Dixon. Without the extra hands and eyes it would make it more of a challenge for me.  It's not easy to split your attention/focus on several dog teams.  By the second half of the workshop I noticed that time was running out, so I had to skip a few things that I wish I could have gotten  more in depth.   We covered some fun games but I hope that some of the learning theory/reinforcement keys were emphasized.  The games are the skeleton of 'come' without knowing the rules and learning theory you wont get far.

Kraig and Susan Paulsen were kind enough to offer their facility for my workshop. Did I mention it was a cold day?  This is there new puppy Kinetic. How cute can you get? 

If you attended, please let me know one thing that you would change.