Relationship Centered Training

Suzanne's CARAT Assessment Tool is brilliant! Learn to observe and understand your dogs on a level you never dreamed possible! Thoughtful interaction between Suzanne and all participants. Questions welcomed!!! This course is an excellent resource for everyone who cares about dogs, from breeders, to those involved with working dogs, to those who want to understand the relationship they have with their own "best friend." "10 out of 10 stars" in my book!

Observing and understanding dogs is a fascinating and essential element for anyone who works with our four-legged friends. But how does one develop a high degree of skill in that? Suzanne Clothier has captured this in her CARAT assessment tool, which gives a framework to identify and evaluate each dog's distinct temperament characteristics. The result is a picture of the "whole dog" that helps assessors understand who that dog is (what motivates him, what worries him, how he reacts to people and environments etc.) and develop the best fit/approaches for him. This seminar is an introduction to CARAT and I highly recommend it. Learning to use CARAT yourself is a longer but worthwhile process. Because CARAT depends on the observational skills of the assessor, the path to CARAT includes in-depth work to develop observation skills. I can't think of a better person to teach this than Suzanne. Her own abilities continue to amaze me. The next seminar will be on observation skills and I can't wait to learn more from her!!! A note about the format: I've taken several wonderful in-person seminars with Suzanne and at first was not sure about doing this online. But I'm so glad I did! In 2-day in-person workshops, I had the chance to see Suzanne work directly with dogs and deliver mountains of good information. But unfortunately, it was so much good info that it was slightly overwhelming for me (I'm not a professional in the dog world) and I probably lost a good bit of what I learned. But the online presentation was just what I needed. It was a series of lessons over several weeks and included pre-recorded videos that I could pause and re-watch to let them really sink in, as well as slides I can print out and retain for later reference. A live Q&A session was held each week to clarify and reinforce the information. I'm sure I understood and will retain much more of this thanks to the online format. Thank you, Suzanne, for such a wonderful experience!

The CARAT Virtual Seminar was an amazing experience. Fun, entertaining, immensely thought-provoking and above all, educational and valuable for the understanding of dogs (and cats, birds, horses, people...). I’ve done the introductory CARAT course both in person and now as a virtual course, and while I loved the richness of being there in person, Suzanne is right when she says your brains may be leaking out your ears by the end of the 2 day seminar. The virtual course, by contrast, allowed the luxury of hitting pause, working some things out in your head, going off to take a look at what you saw in your own animals, and coming back all the more illuminated. Also invaluable was the ability to rewind and watch portions again or go through the entire session again. The Q&A’s after each session were as wonderful as the actual sessions for expanding understanding, clearing up confusion and realizing that if so many of the others have the same questions, maybe you’re not as hopeless as you feared trying wrap your brain around the concepts! This course is more than worth the cost of admission whether you’re a dog trainer or not. The growth in understanding of who my animals are as individuals is an absolute treasure.

If one good thing has come out of COVID it's that this class was offered virtually! This class is packed with information that is easily learned through watching the videos and Q&A sessions.

The course was challenging and improved my observation skills. Suzanne was accessible, helpful, and respectful. She's an all around great teacher. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge of how dogs experience the world.

I took my time going through this program by ensuring I could focus 100% on each video. Boy am I glad I did! I feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg, and am intrigued and terrified all at the same time! This is something anyone who works with dogs should want to learn about.

CARAT is such a much more nuanced way to understand dogs and our relationship to them. This seminar was a great introduction to it and the feedback from other participants in the Q and A sections of the class was such an awesome complement to the course work.