The fourth Modern Ethical Training (MET) Conference, held on March 9–10, 2024, brought together leading experts, trainers, and veterinarians from around the globe for a weekend of groundbreaking insights and practical guidance. With a stellar lineup including Ken Ramirez, Simon Prins, Hannah Branigan, and Victoria Stilwell, the conference explored key topics such as enhancing dogs’ drive and motivation, effective aggression-solving methods, dental and musculoskeletal care, improving recall, and fostering canine resilience—all while showcasing the future of training practices.
Recognized by CCPDT and IAABC with 18 CEUs each, MET 2024 was an unmissable event for professionals dedicated to ethical and innovative training methods.
Select your timezone to view program in your local time zone, or use an external time converter preset HERE. Program times are set to GMT/UTC+01 (Prague). Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins in USA or Canada on March 10.
Lenght: 2 hours 30 minutes (including 30 minutes Q & A part).
Who will benefit from this presentation?
Trainers, police dog trainers, technology fans and geeks, service cynology trainers, scenting activity and nosework fans.
You will learn:
About the presentation:
What does the future of animal training look like? Simon Prins has been using cutting-edge technologies and exploring what they can bring in both special operations and regular training for years.
Are you a fan of new technologies in dog training? Then you will be thrilled to watch his presentation. Simon will describe the newest trends in animal training in correlation to his incredibly interesting work with detection and police dogs.
The emphasis will be practical use for every day training. We will talk about various gadgets and software that can revolutionize the training methods.
Simon will focus on the most effective way of using bridge signals to enhance understanding and obedience in dogs. He will also discuss the scent wheels and line-ups and their role in training detection dogs.
If you’re curious about what’s new in specialized training and what you can use in your everyday life, you will get your answers.
Lenght: 2 hours 45 minutes (including 30 minutes Q & A part).
Who will benefit from this presentation?
Regular dog owners, trainers, dog breeders, anyone who wonders if, how and when to clean their dogs’ teeth and even the ones who can’t make themselves start doing it. Study and science fans who want to know what actually helps to keep the dogs’ teeth clean and what is a myth.
You will learn:
About the presentation:
Do you know that feeling when you have not brushed your teeth for just one day? Not really pleasant, is it? That’s because of tooth plaque. The food residual together with saliva and bacteria create an often invisible film, which is the first step of tartar.
Did you know that even your dog can have tartar? The Slovak veterinarian Jana Radošovská will give you detailed information about how to take care of your dog’s teeth.
Why is it important to remove tartar? Isn’t it enough to regularly give your dog bones or dental treats to chew on? What about the dogs’ ancestors? Nobody brushed their teeth.
And why should we avoid the dog grooming salons that do dental hygiene without anesthesia? If you are interested in answers to these questions, don’t miss this presentation.4
Lenght: 2 hours 30 minutes (including 30 minutes Q & A part).
Who will benefit from this presentation?
Anyone interested in the musculoskeletal system of their dog, regular dog owners but also owners of canine athletes, puppies, adults and even senior dogs, trainers, breeders.
What will you learn?
About the presentation:
Prevention is always better than dealing with a problem. In her presentation, Veronika Uhlířová will focus on the way a dogs‘ environment should look like in order to help them grow and their musculoskeletal system be healthier.
We will talk about the home we share with our dogs and the care routine we give them, we will also concentrate on the details that could (after weeks, months and years of happening) affect the musculoskeletal system of our dogs in a negative manner.
Veronika will present ideas and inspiration of how to alter the habits and environment so that they help the dogs‘ health. From puppy to senior, we will discuss the dogs‘ life stages while focusing on the development, growth, maturity and aging of the musculoskeletal system. That way we will be able to recognize how we can support our dogs‘ physical health.
The influence of sex hormones and cycle will also be addressed, especially in relation to female dogs.
Veronika will lead us through the movement phenomenon as well as the movement that is natural for canines and that should therefore be fundamental for our activities.
How to spot anything that is off in a body that you are not physically in? You will know what to notice in your dog’s posture during a regular day.
Veronika will offer preventive care tools to help you detect and treat deviations from the equilibrium of all musculoskeletal system components.
Last but not least, dogfitness will be mentioned. You will get to know the basic principles of work safety and creating a training lesson, why the right posture is important and how you as a dog owner can affect it.
Together, we will go through video demonstrations for home practice that will lay the basis for further training.
Lenght: 2 hours 30 minutes (including 30 minutes Q & A part).
Who will benefit from this presentation?
Anyone looking for practical solutions to make and keep their dogs’ behavior better, trainers, regular dog owners, reactive dog owners, canine athlete owners, anyone dealing with recalling their dog in tough conditions, training basic commands or husbandry training and grooming.
You will learn:
About the presentation: In the working dog world, Ken’s clients are skilled trainers who have been successful, training the target behavior required (explosive detection, search and rescue techniques, guide dog skills, etc.). But it is beyond that point is where they get into trouble; the training outcomes fall below the accepted standards, and no one is happy. That’s when they call Ken.
Ken has found that his clients’ primary challenge is moving the behavior into the real world and dealing with the distractions that real life throws their way.
It is in these situations where some trainers have relied on punishers to prevent the animals from reacting to distractions and help keep them on task – but the fallout from the use of aversive tools has become increasingly clear so trainers are looking more and more for positive alternatives.
But even skilled trainers in the field, committed to using positive reinforcement-based training solutions, can struggle with this transition.
In this seminar Ken will share how he teaches better stimulus control through the gradual exposure to unique and changing environments.
Ken has successfully increased the effectiveness and reliability of working dogs all over the world. A similar process has also been used to improve husbandry training in the zoological community.
Teaching animals to expect the unexpected and improving stimulus control through systematic desensitization can revolutionize day to day training in so many professional contexts.
Lenght: 2 hours 30 minutes (including 30 minutes Q & A part).
Who will benefit from this presentation?
All dog owners (as all aspects of life are positively affected by better resilience), trainer beginners, reactive dog owners, anyone who wants to see a famous TV star and ask them a question.
In this presentation you will:
About the presentation:
Both figuratively and literally, dogs move towards things that make them feel safer, and being resilient is a key ingredient for dogs to live their fullest, richest, most rewarding life possible by our side.
Despite its importance to a well-balanced life, resilience is often overlooked in the dog world. Helping dogs build resilience depends on understanding how they perceive the world, identifying their needs and finding successful strategies to help them cope.
Join renowned pet behavior expert Victoria Stilwell as she shares actionable tips for how to increase your dog’s resilience.
Whether you’re an aspiring dog trainer or just someone who shares your life with dogs, this presentation will provide insightful value and some new ways of building the strongest, most mutually-enriching relationships with our dogs.
Lenght: 2 hours 30 minutes (including 30 minutes Q & A part).
Who will benefit from this presentation?
Anyone whose dog deals with lack of drive, trainers, canine athlete owners, training geeks, anyone who wants to learn how to motivate their dog more.
This presentation will cover:
About the presentation:
It is a popular misconception that “drive” is something your dog either was born with or he wasn’t – a fixed quantity determined solely by genetics.
Unfortunately, viewing drive as a fixed and unalterable characteristic limits our training potential by suggesting that energetic and enthusiastic behavior is unattainable for certain teams. And that couldn’t be further from the truth!
There is so much that modern trainers can do to enhance, modify, or even manufacture effective training reinforcers to build motivation in any dog from Malinois to Maltese.
When we treat the reinforcement process as a set of skills that can be learned and trained to fluency, we have the ability to strengthen your reinforcers as you would any other behavior!
Perhaps even more importantly, treating reinforcement and drive this way means we have options to increase motivation without depending on techniques based on frustration or deprivation.
Lenght: 30 minutes
Who will benefit from this presentation: all non-professionals and professionals who want to understand social dog behavior better, all wolf and science enthusiasts
About the interview:
The famous biologist David Mech shares his vast experience from several decades of wolf research. He explains the evolution of the alpha wolf/pack leader theory and why it is already outdated. Facts about dominance, submission and their roles in animal relationships will also be shared, as well as what the term ownership zone means and how it can affect dogs.
Lenght: 2 hours 45 minutes (including 30 minutes Q & A part).
Who will benefit from this presentation?
Trainers, training geeks, reactive dog owners, anyone dealing with dog aggression who would like to get better at solving it, anyone who wants to know about current most used methods with their pros and cons.
You will learn:
About the presentation:
Dealing with reactive dogs, handling aggression, and working through problems with highly sensitive animals can be a challenge for even the very best clicker trainers.
Over the years, many creative trainers have presented various alternatives to handling aggression and reactivity problems. The explosion in the number of approaches, combined with an array of new nomenclature, is often confusing for trainers seeking to choose an approach for themselves or to recommend to others.
Today, some of the most discussed approaches include, but are not limited to, Counter Conditioning, Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT), Click to Calm, Behavioral Adjustment Training (BAT), the “Look at That” game (LAT), and a host of others.
How do these varied treatment approaches compare? What common or distinct scientific principles are being employed? Are certain plans better for certain situations than others?
This Session is designed to help you sort out the choices. It will explore the science underlying the approaches, look at their known efficacy, and help you see what these approaches share, as well as their differences, so that you can make informed choices.
Attendees at this Session will also learn to ask the right questions and listen/look for thoughtful answers to be well-prepared when the next approach makes its way forward.
You can watch recordings of each presentation for 6 months.
The time is in 24 hour format. Open each presentation for more details.
The schedule may still change. The lengths of presentations are indicative.
Since 2022, MET Conference is organized by DogEdu s. r. o. / fetch@metconference.com / +420 728 582 411 / General Terms and Conditions / Manage cookies
Times are stated in GMT / UTC +1 time zone (Prague, Czechia). Link to the time converter HERE.
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