From Assessment to Action: Building Working Training Plans with RCT

A Practical Seminar with Suzanne Clothier

The Challenge Every Trainer Faces

How do you move from seeing a dog’s behavior to creating a training plan that actually works? Too often, we leap from problem identification straight to technique selection, missing the crucial bridge of understanding who this individual dog really is. The result? Training plans that look good on paper but crumble when they meet the reality of that particular dog in that specific moment.

In this intensive seminar, we’ll build that bridge using the proven assessment and foundation tools of Relationship Centered Training. You’ll leave with a systematic approach to creating training plans that honor the dog, empower the handler, and deliver lasting results.

What You’ll Master

The Elemental Questions: Your Assessment Foundation

The Elemental Questions distill decades of experience into simple yet profound inquiries that provide the answers we need to do our best by the animals in our care. We’ll explore how each question guides your assessment:

• Hello? – Reading social readiness and establishing trust
• Who are you? – Understanding temperament beyond labels and assumptions
• How is this for you? – Moment-by-moment feedback and threshold awareness
• Can you…? – Assessing physical, mental, and emotional capabilities
• May I…? – Building consent and cooperation
• Can we…? – Balancing team abilities against realistic goals

While easily listed, each question can be asked in more nuanced ways with the answers understood at ever deeper levels as your experience grows.

RCT Foundation Skills: Your Training Toolkit

These foundation techniques create a solid base of skills that are invaluable not just for challenging cases, but for any dog-handler relationship. These aren’t just techniques—they’re assessment tools that reveal information while building capacity for both dog and handler:

• Auto Check-In (ACI) – Building voluntary attention and connection that works even in distracting or triggering situations
• Really Real Relaxation (RRR) – Teaching authentic relaxation through choice, social modeling, and intrinsic motivation
• Attentive Cooperation – Using real life rewards and clear communication to develop willing partnership
• Management Tools – Practical techniques like Go Hunt that redirect focus and provide immediate solutions when training isn’t appropriate

Handler Skills Development:

Equally important are the observation and response skills handlers develop:

• Reading arousal shifts and recognizing threshold moments
• Distinguishing between training opportunities and management situations
• Developing timing and awareness that supports the dog’s learning
• Building confidence in their ability to help their dog navigate challenges

Special Focus: The Reactive Dog

Dogs and handlers both build skills that go far past CC/DS (counter-conditioning and desensitization) to create new options of response and practical coping skills. We’ll examine how reactive dogs require both deeper assessment and more nuanced foundation building.

The Assessment-to-Action Framework

Step 1: See the Dog

Using the Elemental Questions to gather detailed, accurate information about this individual—not what we assume based on breed, history, or presenting behavior, but who they actually are in this moment.

Step 2: Identify Capacities and Limitations

Understanding what this dog can reasonably be expected to learn, when, and under what conditions. Each of these foundational RCT skills promotes improved handler observation skills, awareness of the dog’s thresholds, recognition of body language and behaviors that signal arousal shifts, and identification of training situation vs. management moments.

Step 3: Build Foundation Before Behavior

Why jumping straight to “fixing the problem” often fails, and how foundation skills create the relationship and communication necessary for lasting change.

Step 4: Bridge Building – From Here to There

The art of creating deliberate learning experiences that safely bridge the gap between what the dog can do now and what you ultimately need them to be able to do. Rather than hoping skills will generalize from training to real life, we’ll explore how to systematically set up situations that allow dog and handler teams to practice navigating challenges in a controlled environment.

This means learning to design scenarios that:

• Present manageable versions of real-world challenges
• Allow both dog and handler to practice new skills before the stakes get high
• Build confidence through successful negotiations of increasingly complex situations
• Create positive associations with previously triggering contexts
• Develop fluency with foundation skills before they’re desperately needed

Why This Approach Works

The magic isn’t in any single technique—it’s in the systematic approach to understanding each dog as an individual and building from that understanding. For the dog, these skills are based in volition and agency, with the benefits of self modulation, authentic relaxation, social interaction and clear communication carrying into real life application.

When we truly see the dog, we can create training plans that:

• Address root causes, not just symptoms
• Build on the dog’s natural capacities
• Respect individual limitations and needs
• Create genuine partnership between dog and handler
• Provide practical tools for real-world application

Who Should Join Us

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or someone who simply wants to understand your dog more deeply, this seminar welcomes anyone genuinely curious about dogs, behavior, and relationship. You might be:

• A trainer ready to move beyond cookie-cutter approaches and one-size-fits-all solutions
• Someone living with a reactive, fearful, or challenging dog who wants real understanding, not just management tips
• A dog owner who’s tired of techniques that work for everyone else’s dog but not yours
• A professional looking for assessment tools that actually reveal useful information
• Anyone who suspects there’s more to training than compliance and wants to explore what’s possible when relationship comes first
• Someone who loves dogs enough to do the deeper work of truly seeing and understanding them

If you’re willing to question assumptions, think beyond quick fixes, and put the individual dog at the center of everything you do, you’ll find valuable insights here.

What Makes This Different

Most training seminars focus on what to do. This seminar focuses on how to think—how to see each dog clearly, assess accurately, and plan systematically. Understanding the dog within the context of this complex blend of information helps handlers work to modify and adapt their handling and goals for enhanced success.

You’ll leave with more than techniques—you’ll have a framework for approaching any dog, any behavior challenge, any training goal with clarity and confidence.

The Relationship Centered Difference

Suzanne Clothier’s Relationship Centered Training (RCT) blends heart and science with a deep appreciation for each dog as an individual, and each relationship as unique and dynamic. This isn’t about imposing solutions—it’s about discovering what’s possible when we truly partner with the dog.

Come ready to think differently, see more clearly, and build training plans that honor both the science of behavior and the art of relationship.

Suzanne Clothier has been helping dogs and their people create healthier, happier relationships for over 40 years. Her Relationship Centered Training approach has influenced trainers worldwide with its unique blend of scientific understanding and heartfelt respect for each dog as an individual.

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