advocacy
PPG Advocacy Panel: Making Education More Accessible Susan Nilson reports on the highlights of the PPG Advocacy Panel’s first meeting where panelists deliberated on how to best advocate for positive reinforcement training
PPG launched its Advocacy Panel in August with the aim of supporting pet guardian education and making it accessible to a wider audience
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he PPG Advocacy Panel was launched in August and has already held its first three sessions, where the panel discussed How To Best Advocate for Positive Reinforcement Methods, How to Reach and Work with Your Local Veterinarians, and Your PPG Advocacy Panel at Work! Advocating to Let Dogs be Dogs, Cats be Cats, Equids Be Equids. Panel members to date include Beth Adelman, Kristi Benson, Dr. Laura Donaldson, Dr. Eduardo Fernandez, Dr. Robert Hewings, Aaron Jones, Judy Luther, Linda Michaels, Pat Miller, Helen Phillips, Kim Silver, Dr. Kristina Spaulding, Claire Staines, K. Holden Svirsky, Dr. Zazie Todd, Dr. Karolina Westlund, and Sam Wike. Sessions are moderated by ShockFree Coalition chairman Don Hanson and PPG president Niki Tudge, with discussion top ics announced at least four weeks before the scheduled air date. Advocacy Panel discussions are streamed live on PPG’s public Face book page and are released afterwards as podcasts on the BARKS Pod casts platform. The sessions are designed to be free flowing, giving each participant the opportunity to answer key questions and supplement other panelists‘ responses. Audience members are encouraged to par ticipate with comments and questions, making it an interactive, educa tional and enjoyable experience all round. The Advocacy Panel’s key mission is to support pet guardian educa
tion and make it accessible to a wider audience. We present here some of the many highlights from the first session, which discussed How To Best Advocate for Positive Reinforcement Methods amongst clients, pet professionals, social media, and the wider community.
Q: How Do We Advocate for Positive Reinforcement Training? Niki Tudge: How often do we hear that positive reinforcement training doesn't work, I’ve been to three trainers and they all failed? That's not positive reinforcement training not working, that's the application of positive reinforcement training. If you truly want to advocate for positive reinforcement training, get a good education because then you know what you are doing, you are doing it properly, and you are getting the results. And once people have got the competency, that is advocacy. Pat Miller: People care about their dogs. People who use aversive meth ods care about their dogs. They’re not doing it because they want to be mean to their dogs. The majority of my clients that have been using some sort of aversive method on their dog (because some other trainer
BARKS from the Guild/November 2021
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