Do you live or work with an animal that can get too excited and jump, mouth, or scratch people, destroy furniture and objects, or struggle with separation anxiety?

 

If we don't do anything, these behaviors can become problematic for dogs and humans... It can lead to dogs being surrendered to animal shelters or rehomed, fewer interactions or outings for the dog, and changing our daily routines, etc.

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However, there is good news! When our dogs behave like this, they are telling us something important - that we have something they really want... OUR AFFECTION!

 

To fulfill the dog's needs and teach more desirable behavior, we can give the dog what they want, our affection, for doing easier and more desirable behavior that we want. And we have the perfect training technique to do this!

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Constructional Affection teaches our dogs how to appropriately ask for and receive our affection so they can be the ideal companions we always knew they could be! 

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The benefits of Constructional Affection include:

• Builds mutually enjoyable relationships between dogs and the people who care for them

• Establishes clear communication with our dogs

• Great tool for help with separation anxiety

• Teaches dog how to relax in many settings

• Helps shelter dogs get adopted and stay adopted

• It is fun and easy!

• And more!

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Constructional Affection has been able to successfully help dogs and their family establish the kinds of relationships they dreamed of. It also has helped shelter dogs learn the kinds of behaviors that get them adopted. If you want to learn more about how we teach, join us for the free webinar! You will see some befores and afters of Constructional Affection! We are looking forward to welcoming you to the group class as well!

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Class Description

 

Constructional Affection is a training procedure that uses affection in the form of petting, stroking, gentle scratching, or other similar tactile contact, as a reinforcer to build desirable behavior. Companion animals live with us, and by delivering our interaction and affection in a specific way, we can effectively teach desirable behaviors and be able to obtain the kind of life we dream of.

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You will learn the behavior analytic concepts and training procedure through our lectures, exercises, sharing your training, and discussion. Throughout the class, you will learn the Constructional Approach (Goldiamond, 1974/2002; Layng, et al., 2022) - the approach that we take to understand behaviors, how to conduct and interpret assessments to understand what the animal is after, Constructional Affection - the training procedure to turn undesirable behaviors maintained by our attention and interaction into desirable behaviors maintained by our interaction and affection. At the end of each class, we will leave you with an actionable assignment. You can follow along with the weekly assignment by applying the assessment and Constructional Affection with your animal or your client's animal! You can share assessment and training videos in the group classes and Open Houses and get our advice and feedback to improve your next session! You will have a deeper understanding of how Constructional Affection works by actually doing it! 

 

*If you are concerned with aggressive or fearful behaviors and want to learn how to solve them, we recommend registering for the Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT) group class. 

 

 

CAAWT provides training and works with shelter dogs so that they can find their furever family and stay adopted. We have huge success helping shelter dogs find their furever home through Constructional Affection. Below are the success stories with the Constructional Affection of two shelter dogs, Carmel and Sammy!