How to use the Blackthorn Academy - retriever training system
June 20, 2019Rainer Schmidt
the main concept
Before watching these courses be sure you went through the course Fundamentals because that contains all the basic principles how to raise up a small puppy to become a decent "raw material" to train.
The Fundamentals course contains among others:
How to teach the puppy to come when you call?
How to teach basic obedience commands like Sit and Stay?
How to manage the pup's everyday life?
and many more.
Basic training is like a puzzle - you train every part separately and then put them together when the dog has a solid knowledge of all of the parts.
That is how the Teaching part is built up. You can find separate courses about obedience, hunting, marking etc. - and when your dog knows all those basic things then you can proceed to make more complex and difficult setups and you can follow the Training - Marking, Training - Hunting etc. courses to polish his knowledge and give him more experience.
We strongly recommend to build up your knowledge and skills with this course and include this into your daily training in the following way:
Watch the whole course/section you actually want to use in a calm place, where you can concentrate and focus well before your training
e.g. the evening before you do this section for the first time with your dog.
Repeat the videos as much as you need until you have a clear understanding how the training shall be.
You can "jump" inside the videos from one important topic to the other very fast. To make this as easy as possible for you we included red markers which give you an indication in which parts of the video you find the most important steps.
Read again the relevant eBook directly before you start your training.
Watch again the relevant video(s) directly before you start your training.
Take your mobile phone with you to the training because all content here can be read and watched there as well!
If you don't remember how the content or some details just watch the video(s) again on your mobile phone.
After your training try to analyse what and how you did right and wrong. Make notes what you should do better or different, or which parts you should repeat to get the best understanding from your dog.
If needed read the eBook(s) or watch the video(s) again.
If you have problems, concerns or additional questions write them down and participate in the next "Blackthorn Academy Webinar".
These webinars are hold regularly about specific courses, section in the course and other topics, based on the questions of the "students". Each webinar lasts about 30-40 minutes plus an additionally 30 minutes "Query and Answer" part in which the Blackthorn trainers will answer your questions
If you build up your knowledge, skills and training in the described way, after a while all this will be totally natural for you.
You will not have to think too much about how it shall or will work - you just will be able to do it!.