Last night I was sorting through old paper and came across my ‘graduation’ packet from the Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) dog trainer program. The date listed is exactly 10 years ago!
Spring 2007 – Learning about KPA
Authentic 2007 flyer.
I saw someone mention the KPA program online and found a link to a website. Not much was up, it was shared before being finished. Enough information was on the website to know something interesting was going to happen. I attended both ClickerExpo and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants conferences. The events passed out KPA flyers with a little more information. In April I took my dog Blaze to the Purdue veterinary behaviorist and the vet tech there mentioned KPA as well.
August 2007 – Enrolling
I enrolled. There weren’t a lot of semi-formal dog trainer options at the time. Theoretically I could go somewhere for an internship. Jean Donaldson had her program. At the time was an in-person thing out in CA and long, maybe a month? With both the cost of living there and finding someone here in Ohio to care for my dogs… that seemed off the table. There were two organizations that had certifications based off of standardized tests or case studies. I didn’t have the teaching hours/experience to be able to be eligible to take them. Like even today, I didn’t want to pay to take a standardized test I was confident I would pass. I want to spend my money and time on learning new things. Bob Bailey camps were offered at the time and I regret not being able to make that happen.
KPA seemed like an interesting option with a lot of promise. The ClickerExpo faculty were eager and excited, Blaze’s behavior tech was excited, there was talk of a lot of marketing help and additional opportunities. In addition to a theoretical understanding of training, we would be applying the information to training dogs, training another species, teaching people, and running a business. The format of 4-5 months of online lessons broken up by four 2-day in-person workshops was interesting. This met my criteria of being a learning opportunity.
Fall 2007 – Workshops
photo by T Tepper. Luna at the final workshop.
We had our first workshop in late September or early October. Our group had 9 participants from several different states. Many were driving 7-9 hour to attend. I had “only” a four and a half hour drive to West Lafayette, Indiana.
Workshops were fun. This is my first memory of an experience around a group of experienced, varied, and enthusiastic trainers for hands-on training time. It was a special experience.
The KPA was brand new. I think there was one group out west ahead of us by a few weeks, but the lessons were rolling out as we went along. Because of this there were some technology challenges, but that was part of the excitement.
One person in our group, Terri Tepper of Chicago, took it on herself to take photos. I found an email where she wrote “I look at photos as heirlooms so I’m trying to give you all a small record of this part of your life.” Some of those are included here and I don’t even remember seeing some of these before.
January 2008 – Final Assessments Preparation
Photo by T Tepper. Blaze at a workshop.
We were the second group to test. So as a group we were within the first 10 to finish the program. However, a few weeks before the test, Blaze had a cluster of seizures and wasn’t doing as well. Physically he was fine, but he was more impulsive and had a very hard time focusing. I switched to Luna. We created a behavior chain of 10 things that could be done in a specific order but also be re-ordered. At the time, it was somewhat stressful to quickly be pulling this together with her after already doing most of it with Blaze.
January 2008 – Final Assessments
We did our final workshops and the training and teaching assessment. I don’t remember where or how I heard it or if I imagined it, but I believe the first group had a 25% pass rate. We knew that going into our tests.
Photo by T Tepper. Our group!
I passed and I think all in our group did but one person who missed a lot due to other life things that came up (she later finished the program).
2018
I can’t believe it’s been ten years. Since then, I’ve seen a few at training seminars or events.
For a long time I was the only KPA trainers in Ohio, now there are now a lot of KPA trainers even right here in Columbus. Some nights at the training facility we’ve had 5 of them in the building. The program has hundreds of graduates, all over the world, with many different focus areas.