Do You See What I See? Examining How Animals Sense the World Around Them, and How It Can Impact the Training of Various Species. Presented by Yvette Van Veen

CEUs: PPAB 1, CCPDT (pending), IAABC (pending), KPA (pending)

Whether training dogs, birds, insects or any other animal, how they sense the world likely differs from our mental representation of the world around us. When animals see, smell, taste, hear and feel elements in the environment can serve as cues that elicit learned behaviours or fixed action patterns (FAPs). If we fail to consider the animal’s sensory reality, we may miss that which is right before us, but invisible to our senses.

Learning Objectives

• How does human perception work, especially sight? How does a 2D image become a 3D representation in our minds?
• What do other species see? A look at the fascinating world of “seeing” with touch.
• Looking at species that see UV light physically seeing things that are present but are hidden from our sight.
• How does polarized light look and how does it work to help animals get around?
• What are pheromones and how do they assist some species.
• How are these things tested if we cannot perceive what we are investigating?
• Early exposure with senses impacts later abilities. The case for “enriched” environments.

• Socialization. Looking at a scientific study of what happens when animals are raised in a restrictive rearing environment, and why that matters so much to dogs.

• Working with a dog’s sense of smell and making the case for the notion that, “They are not sniffing nothing.”
• When “nothing” cues behaviour. How stimuli may be creating a cascade effect in dog behaviour problems such as marking.
• What is a fixed action pattern (also called Modal action pattern) and can you train around a behaviour with strong genetic predispositions?
• Visualizing scents as cues, both positive and negative.

About Your Presenter 

Yvette Van Veen

Yvette Van Veen has two decades of experience training dogs, lives and works in London Ontario. She offers both group and private sessions. She has worked extensively with formerly feral dogs. Yvette’s writing has been a long-standing feature in Ontario’s newspapers, currently appearing in the Toronto Star. Her life is shared with her son Jordan, her formerly feral dog, “Kipper the ex-crotch ripper”, border collie, “Karma” and Icarus the cat. You can reach Yvette at info@awesomedogs.ca or on Facebook at facebook.com/londondogtrainer/