Do as I do is a new training technique based on social learning. Social learning means acquiring new behaviours from the observation of others. Recent ethological studies revealed the social cognitive abilities of dogs and demonstrated that they are surprisingly predisposed to learn socially from humans. Claudia Fugazza is from Italy and works as a PhD student researcher at the University of Budapest with Prof. Miklosi. You can find many of Prof. Miklosi's scientific publications on: http://familydogproject.elte.hu. You can see Claudia at work on youtube on: http://youtu.be/d_ipfb2f8Gc and her students at http://www.youtube.com/user/theHAPPYDOGSCHOOL/videos?view=0 Kutyával az Emberért Alapítvány (Dogs for Humans Foundation) in Hungary is founded by one of Claudia's colleagues and has successfully build it's entire curriculum around the concept of social learning. You can find videos of their work on: http://www.kea-net.hu Some of the topics discussed thoroughly at this seminar are: • What is individual learning and species-specific behavior • What is social (observational) learning • Why bother with social learning? When social learning is advantageous? (if you answer this question, you'll find the best applications for the Do as I do training technique) • What are prerequisits for the species for being able to learn socially and do the dogs possess these characteristics? (Be cool, they do!) • Where did dog's social cognitive abilities come from? • Research on social learning in animals: the history, discoveries, what's going on today • Social learning in dogs - Stimulus/local enhancement - Mimicking/goal emulation - Imitation (functional imitation, deferred imitation) • Things not to be confused with imitation - Contagion - Response facilitation • Do as I do training

Sponsor: Pawsitive Skills K9 Academy

Speaker(s): **Claudia Fugazza

Contact: Alina Turk
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