Alex Robinson
Alex is coming to Happy Dogs October 21st & 22ndAlex Robinson’s Three Cs Workshop
Connection – Confidence – Commitment
The goal of the workshop is to teach people how to be better trainers, better relationship builders, and essentially better teammates for their dog through Connection, Confidence, and Commitment.
Workshop Topics Include:
Alex will share his framework for training the competitive obedience exercises using engagement, attention and games that build drive. Alex uses engagement skills to build a connection that motivates dogs to remain engaged with their handler no matter the circumstances or environment. He will also explain the importance of thoughtful reward placement and delivery and, how to build incremental, achievable proofing challenges.
Working participants will have opportunities throughout each day to apply Alex’s framework and practice the skills he presents.
Other topics include:
- Techniques, concepts and games to train and maintain animated and precise heeling, ring-ready fronts and finishes; consistent execution of the obedience exercises signals and incremental achievable proofing challenges.
- Alex will help participants understand his approach for diagnosing problems and finding solutions. Participants will be provided an opportunity to identify training challenges they want Alex to address.
- Trial prep including ring entrances, engagement between exercises, tricks and games to keep training fresh, build confidence and increase drive.
Seminar Schedule
Saturday, Oct, 21st: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday Oct. 22nd: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location
Happy Dogs Training Center
24 Carver Street
Wellford, SC 29386
Workshop Fees
Working Participant: $325
Weekend Auditor: $185
Private Lessons: $85/30 minutes
If there is sufficient demand, Alex will come back on Monday, October 23rd for a day of private lessons.
Refund Policy: Registrations fees are not refundable after September 1, 2023. You may sell your spot to a friend or someone on the waiting list after September 1st. Please notify us if you sell your spot so we know who to expect.
Waiting List: Priority on the waitlist will be given to participants that accept an audit spot.
Random Draw Process
Registration for the individuals that indicated an interest in this workshop by adding their name to the “Save the Date” list will begin on Monday, May 22nd. On Friday, May 26th, a random draw to fill the working spots will be conducted as follows: 1) Registrations will be assigned numbers based on the order received. 2) A random number generator (Random Result – Numbers) will be used to randomly order the registrations. The first 16 people on the randomly generated list will receive working spots.
Confirmations will be sent within five days of the draw. Remaining entries will be wait-listed per draw order based on the wait list options selected on the entry form. Paid auditors that elect to be on the wait list will receive priority on the wait list. A partial refund for the difference between the working fee and audit fee will be issued. If a wait-listed entry is selected to fill an open spot, payment of the difference between the audit and working fee will be due within 5 days to hold the spot.
About Alex Robinson
Alex is a successful obedience competitor and trainer hailing from New Zealand. He is an in-demand, world renown seminar presenter. Alex has achieved many national level wins with his dogs and has coached teams to national level wins and obedience championships.
Alex’s Training Philosophy: Alex believes that your ring performance is a reflection of the quality of your training sessions, relationship with your dog, your dog’s understanding of the exercises and your reinforcement schedule.
Alex believes the core fundamental for successful dog training is voluntary engagement, once you have this, the rest comes much easier.
In Alex's Own Words . . .
I thought I would write a bit about myself without any of that advertising fluff so you get a feel for who I am as a person, a trainer, and what you may get out of attending a training workshop of mine!
Long story short dogs saved my life in my teenage years. Dogs have given me so much throughout my life, it is not lost on me how incredibly privileged I am to travel the world doing something I love. I have met amazing people and have developed deep and treasured friendships because of dogs.
Teaching people how to be better trainers, build stronger relationships, and better teammates for their dogs is my way of giving back to the dogs that I owe so much to. My motivation for training is the dogs.
As a presenter my goal is to empower you, the handler, with information. When you understand the what, the why, and the how, you are independent as a dog trainer. Not only will you be able to implement and use the techniques learned with confidence; you will understand the underlying and overarching concepts and be able to extrapolate these and be able to troubleshoot and problem solve independently.
I want anyone who trains with me to be independent! I am not there every time you train. For you to give your dog the highest quality of training you need to be able to react and act in the moment. If you, as a trainer, need to rely on me to tell you what to do each step of the way, I have failed!
Truth be told, I cannot lay out an exact step by step program, because dog training is a journey not a linear path. It is a crawl forwards, a leap sideways, a stumble backwards into a hole, hauling yourself out, and powering forward toward your goal, only to find yourself running backward. You may hit the wall and bounce forward, you can see the finish line, but out of nowhere BLIZZARD, you cannot see up from down, left from right. Just as you are about to give up, the storm eases and you discover that you have finally arrived at your goal.
Instead of a step-by-step method, I have identified concepts that every successful obedience team has mastered. My training revolves around teaching trainers and their dogs how to master these concepts.
I would like you to think of these concepts as ingredients that you need to mold to create a successful, harmonious obedience team. Most of your training sessions should be focused on nurturing these concepts and mastering the three C’s instead of focusing on the competition obedience exercises. When you and your dog have mastered the three C’s, obedience, or to be honest, any dog sport world is your oyster!
I swear by Alex’s heeling method – never have to fix forging, attention is incredible. I can reinforce in the ring and it held up lovely all the way through Sailor’s OTCH with no corrections. Thank you, Alex Robinson for helping us on this journey. It is a level of dog training that is truly magical.
“Alex has an uncanny ability to read dogs and people. He breaks training into very small and understandable steps. He is more detail oriented than any other seminar presenter I have worked with in the past 45 years. Alex knows how to draw dogs into the engagement game. Before long the dogs are initiating engagement. Once that happens, Alex teaches his students how to transfer value for engagement to longer and longer periods of obedience. His experience working with a wide variety of breeds, personalities, biddability and intensity, allows him to get inside each dog’s head and guide the team toward success.”
I feel so lucky to be sponsoring another seminar with Alex in May (his third in WA). As you see his seminars being promoted on Facebook this Spring and Summer, I strongly encourage my competition obedience enthusiast friends to attend.
As an instructor who works with many newbie Novice A teams, teaching my students how to help their dogs exit the crate in different ways, based on the activity, has made a world of difference for the handlers and the dogs. Everyone talks about how “engagement starts at the crate” but no one teaches it with such attention to detail as Alex does. It’s the “thing before the thing before the thing” as Alex likes to say.
Thank you, Alex Robinson, for sharing your knowledge with us! It was truly enlightening, and I look forward to applying what I learned to my own dog training. What a fantastic seminar!