January 11, 2024

Catch the Good in Your Dog: SMARTx50 with Kathy Sdao

1 hour 14 minutes

If you try one training method with your new rescue dog, try this one! This week, Emily and Libby speak with Kathy Sdao, world-renowned dog trainer, speaker, writer, and educator. Sdao’s accessible training technique, SMARTx50, is a powerful tool that distills behavior science into the lay person's terms, making it accessible for our human learners: dog rescuers, fosters and adopters. They discuss how to use SMARTx50 to help our dogs fit into our human world, and this conversation is lively and full of both science and heart; evidence and experience. Some topics discussed are:

How to take training out of the science theory realm into the practical, accessible world of humans training their dog

Helping resolve dogs anxiety by using reinforcers

How her work with marine mammals influences her training approach

Human praise as payment - does it work or not?

How the Smartx50 technique can be adapted to a shelter environment

Kathy has been passionate about animal training ever since she quit a good job to move halfway around the world to train dolphins at the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory at the University of Hawaii.

Now, 35 years later, she offers her expertise as an applied animal behaviorist to dog owners in Washington State and across the world, to seminar and webinar audiences and to professional training organizations. Kathy has taught 300 seminars, workshops, conferences and webinars; many of these presentations have been professionally recorded and are available for purchase. Kathy’s training philosophy and advice is summarized in her book, Plenty in Life is Free: Reflections on Dogs, Training and Finding Grace.

For transcripts, visit www.podtotherescue.com

Credits: Libby Felts and Emily Wolf (Hosts and Creators). Original music by Mike Pesci. Production and editing by Alex Ammons of For the Love Media.

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