FEED YOUR MINDS
You'll be amazed at what you can achieve in partnership with your animal.
(THAT’S A CONCEPT YOU BOTH WILL EAT UP!)
FEED YOUR MINDS
Be amazed at what you can achieve in partnership with your animal.
(THAT’S A CONCEPT YOU BOTH WILL EAT UP!)
UNLOCK HIDDEN POTENTIAL
Teach useful and cool concepts your animal will apply with remarkable accuracy.
20
DEMONSTRATION VIDEOS
17
LEARNING GOALS
10
TRAINING EXERCISES
1:1
INSTRUCTOR SUPPORT
AMAZING—AND FOR EVERYONE
Retrieve the largest ball behind the couch
ALL ANIMALS CAN LEARN & APPLY
CONCEPTS IN WORK, SPORT, AND DAILY LIVING
AMAZING AND FOR EVERYONE
Retrieve the largest ball behind the couch
All ANIMALS CAN LEARN & APPLY CONCEPTS
IN WORK, SPORT, and DAILY LIVING
READY WHEN YOU ARE
START ANYTIME
Begin on your schedule
FROM ANYWHERE
Learn wherever there is internet access
USE ANY DEVICE
Tablet, cell, desktop, laptop. All good to go!
You will learn the core skills needed to train all concepts and then teach your animal his or her first complete concept skill: match to sample! The core skills are fluency in stationing, advanced targeting, desensitization, generalization, release signals, and fading a cue.
Match to sample is the skill of identifying a match between two things. Your dog or other animal can be cued to find the object that looks or smells like the one presented.
Successful completion of this course is required before enrolling in any of the other courses in the Concept Training family. These courses include: Modifier Cues, Adduction, Imitation, and Counting.
You will learn to teach match to sample along with the baseline skills for teaching all major concepts. In addition to being loads of fun, this course will really elevate your training skills. What will also surprise and delight you is how much working together on concept training will enrich your animal's life and continue to strengthen your communication and bond.
You will learn at your own pace, through 10 training exercises, 17 coordinated learning goals, with 20 videos and hands-on exercises—and 2 hours of personalized coaching from Ken Ramirez.
See the visual Course Guide.
1. Apply the definition of concept training and explore the five major categories of concepts: match to sample, modifiers, adduction, imitation, and counting
2. Apply concept training to enhance your animal’s problem-solving abilities in general
3. Train the core skills needed for all concept training: stationing, advanced targeting, desensitization, generalization, release signals, and fading a cue
4. Solidify your training chops in criteria management, focus of the training sessions, and cue fluency
5. Train two main processes of creativity: free shaping and offering behaviors with novel objects
6. Train the concept of matching to sample, step-by-step
7. So much more!
See all 17 Learning Goals
- A clicker trained animal
- A strong relationship with the animal
- A diverse repertoire of fluent behaviors already trained
- An animal that enjoys learning and eagerly participates in the training process
MEET YOUR TEACHER
Your Passion, Our Expertise.
EXCEPTIONAL TRAINER & EDUCATOR COMMITTED TO YOUR SUCCESS.
Ken Ramirez
KPA Faculty
Marine mammals • Movie buff • Views of Mount Rainier
Ken Ramirez is Executive Vice President and Chief Training Officer at Karen Pryor Clicker Training (KPCT). He oversees educational programming and teaches courses online at Karen Pryor Academy, in-person at ClickerExpo conferences, and at KPCT's National Training Center.
A trainer and consultant for nearly 40 years, Ken is highly active in animal conservation worldwide. Prior to joining KPCT, he served as Executive Vice President, Animal Care and Training, at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. Ken is the author of a seminal book on animal training. A selection of his lectures is available on streaming video.
Ken Ramirez
KPA Faculty
Marine mammals • Movie buff • Views of Mount Rainier
Ken Ramirez is Executive Vice President and Chief Training Officer at Karen Pryor Clicker Training (KPCT), where he oversees educational programming and teaches courses online at Karen Pryor Academy, and in-person at the ClickerExpo conference, and the KPCT's National Training Center.
A trainer and consultant for nearly 40 years, Ken's is still highly active in animal conservation worldwide. Prior to KPCT, he served as Executive Vice President, Animal Care and Training, at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. Ken is the author of a seminal book on animal training and a selection of his lectures are available on streaming video.
“For the individual intrigued by teaching more than the basics, I found the course to be enticing. It left me wanting more in-depth activity about each concept. It is laid out well for the new trainer to grasp and work through.”
– Heather Lawson
“I had already worked with concept training, so this course was good practice and helped me limber up for more advanced work. For somebody coming in fresh, this course would be great preparation for concept training, or any training for that matter!”
– Christine Brooks
“I found the whole course to have value.”
– Daniel Kimbrell
“For the individual intrigued by teaching more than the basics, I found the course to be enticing. It left me wanting more in-depth activity about each concept. It is laid out well for the new trainer to grasp and work through.”
– Heather Lawson
“I had already worked with concept training, so this course was good practice and helped me limber up for more advanced work. For somebody coming in fresh, this course would be great preparation for concept training, or any training for that matter!”
– Christine Brooks
“I found the whole course to have value.”
– Daniel Kimbrell
$299
$299 $239.20
USE COUPON CODE: BTS2023
TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING FOR A SMALL PRICE
- Top teaching from Ken Ramirez
- Take your time. Unlimited course access for 1 year.
- Independent? Audit the course for $99 (no instructor support).
- Save! Bundle both Concept Training Courses to save 15%
- Super skilled? You can teach concepts in as few as 6 months.
Purchase this course now and start it later
We can place your course on hold for you for as long as you’d like. Before you access your course, please send an email immediately after purchase to [email protected]
Once you complete this course, the concept gate is open! This is the gateway course to all of our other concept training courses. In this course you are trained in the skills that you will need for any other module. Learn once, explore more!
Full Course:
- Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
- CEUs: 5
- The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT)
- CEUs: 5
- The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC):
- CEUs: 5
Audit:
- Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
- CEUs: 5
- The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT)
- CEUs: 5
- The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC):
- CEUs: 5
$299
$299 $239.20
USE COUPON CODE: BTS2023
TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING FOR A SMALL PRICE
- Top teaching from Ken Ramirez
- Take your time. Unlimited course access for one year
- Independent? Audit the course for $99 (no instructor support)
- Save! Bundle both Concept Training Courses to save 15%
- Super skilled? You can teach concepts in as few as 6 months.
Purchase this course now and start it later
We can place your course on hold for you for as long as you’d like. Before you access your course, please send an email immediately after purchase to [email protected]
Once you complete this course, the concept gate is open! This is the gateway course to all of our other concept training courses. In this course you get trained in the skills that you will need for any other module. Learn once, explore more!
If you need CEUS, we have plenty
Full Course:- Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
- CEUs: 5
- The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT)
- CEUs: 5
- The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC):
- CEUs 5
- Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
- CEUs: 5
- The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT)
- CEUs: 5
- The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC):
- CEUs 5
$299 for the full course and $99 for audit access. See price
.Yes! Save up to 15% when buying Concept Training: Let's Get Started and Concept Training: Modifer Cues as a bundle.
This course introduces the five major concepts, teaches the foundation skills needed for all concepts, and provides in-depth training protocols and practice for match to sample.
- Match to Sample: such as “go find me an object that looks like this one” or “go find the missing person or suspect who smells like this”
- Modifier Cues: such as right/left, large/small, over/under—words that modify nouns
- Adduction: combining two behaviors to create a new one spontaneously; a cue for adducting jump and spin, for example, becomes spinning while airborne
- Imitation or Mimicry: copy what I do or what another specific animal does
- Counting or Quantity Recognition: answer the question, “how many do you see?”
- A clicker trained animal
- A strong relationship with the animal
- A diverse repertoire of fluent behaviors already trained
- An animal that enjoys learning and eagerly participates in the training process
- Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
- CEUs: 5
- The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT)
- CEUs: 5
- The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC):
- CEUs 5
- Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
- CEUs: 5
- The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT)
- CEUs: 5
- The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC):
- CEUs: 5
This course was written by Ken Ramirez, one of the foremost experts on, and practitioners of, animal training in the world today. He has taught more than 20,000 trainers and 500 individual animals of nearly 75 species throughout his career.
A 35+ year veteran of animal care and training, Ken is the Executive Vice-President and Chief Training Officer of Karen Pryor Clicker Training (KPCT). Previously, he served as the Executive Vice-President of Animal Care and Animal Training at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. There he developed and supervised animal care and animal health programs, staff training and development, and public-presentation programs for the entire animal collection of more than 32,000 animals. Ken worked at Shedd for nearly 26 years.
Ken is a past president of the International Marine Animal Trainer’s Association (IMATA), has been a ClickerExpo faculty member since 2005, and teaches a graduate course at Western Illinois University.
Ken has written for numerous scientific publications and authored countless popular articles. He authored the book Animal Training: Successful Animal Management through Positive Reinforcement, published in 1999.
The course was reviewed and approved by Karen Pryor Clicker Training, and guaranteed to be developmentally appropriate, 100% force-free, and fun for all!
