Seminars & Workshops

Von Forell K9 Education, an International training and development company, offering Workshops and Seminars that are innovative, effective training programs for creating extraordinary dogs and extraordinary handlers for any outcome.

Our “Clear Communication Workshop” the foundation of many is specifically designed to bring about positive and permanent shifts in your quality of training. It is designed for you to view the training of animals with complete new possibilities.

Von Forell Seminars / Workshops

A Transformative and Informative Learning Model

The program is grounded in a transformative learning model rather than an informative learning model. Informative or additive learning increases what one knows, adds to one’s skills, and extends already established capacities by bringing new knowledge to an existing worldview and frames of reference.

Transformative learning, by comparison, gives people an awareness of the basic structures in which one knows, thinks, and acts in the world. From that awareness comes a fundamental shift that leaves people more fully in accord with their own possibilities. While most people are familiar with methods for producing outstanding results, they recognise certain realistic limits to what seems possible.

Von Forell K9 Education

Instinctive Dog Training Solutions 

What’s In It For You?

• In our research, 97 percent of people surveyed said Von Forell K9 Education made a profound, lasting difference in the way they trained their dogs.
• Von Forell K9 Education is specifically designed to bring about positive and permanent shifts in the quality of your dog training.
• The freedom to be absolutely at ease no matter where you are, who you’re with, or what the circumstance – the power to be in action effectively.
• Participants overwhelmingly report that their participation in Von Forell K9 Educational Systems yields not mere insights or improvements, but provides lasting results that expand and unfold over time.

About Our Time Together

From our observation, the average owner or trainer spends most of their time fighting long term unwanted behaviours. Some of these behaviours can be traced to your dog’s genetic predisposition. However, for the most part, they are learnt behaviours that have been reinforced time after time. In other words, they are training problems that may have been taught.

It is from these unwanted behaviours, whether it be in a show, competitive training or simply at home, that many tricks and gimmicks seem to spring into the dog world. These methods, in general, do not correct the problems but merely mask them.

In addition, these quick-fix solutions only add to the problems in training. Once the undesirable behaviours have developed, training is never as simple as it could have been and is often very frustrating.

At this point, a very promising young dog has become nothing but a horror to work and live with.

• When did it all start?

• Was it as early as the first sit command?

Besides the fact that the dog will learn what behaviour to perform when it hears the word “sit” it simultaneously learns how to learn (classical conditioning – the feeling associated with it). This is where foundation training begins. What the dog has learnt during its foundation training will have a lasting effect on its performance, for better or worse. During stress or problem solving the dog will always attempt to access its foundation training as a point of reference. It is at this point in time where the dog and trainer learn to speak the same language – or not!

This critical stage of training requires firsthand knowledge of animal learning, patience and specifically taught exercises.

Von Forell K9 Education offers you complete training opportunities for any promising young dog. We will show you how to reinforce the genetic potential in your dog with the soundest training systems available. Our seminars and workshops are specifically designed to bring about positive and permanent shifts in your quality of training.

They are designed to help you view the training of dogs with completely new possibilities. Finally, we will cover the current state of global breeding practices and the reflexive impact environment has on behaviour, what the breeder must know about proper trait selection, developing their puppies and what they should be teaching their puppy owners, how this impacts the type of dogs we end up in our community.

Please view our video taken at the Australian Working Dog Conference in Sydney Australia on the topic on Developing Working Dog Breeds Based on Behaviour.

On a Personal Note

These events are for anyone who wishes to achieve excellence and to understand the “mathematics of canine behaviour and all the ugly variables”.

For any families, ANKC, IPO competitors or Law Enforcement Officers that wish to attend one of our seminars / workshops, the information below is designed to provide you with some understanding as to the overall structure and focus of our events.

We commence with a general opening statement, the history and current global position of the working dog world. I will discuss my belief systems, my philosophy on breeding and training dogs, my position on positive and negative training systems, and all the possibilities it creates.

Then we shall discuss how to create and develop a proactive puppy or adult. I will illustrate the advantages of establishing why this active training component is so important and how to achieve it, as it is the underlying theme in the system.

We will cover the importance of the reinforcement of self-discovery, teaching the dogs how to “learn to learn” and how they can manipulate their environment to access reward. We will cover conditioned passive and active reward techniques and show you why one technique creates concentration whilst the other creates motivation.

Shaping puppy behaviour is a vital part of the program but what is most important is the teaching of active and passive states and three essential behaviours. This sets the dogs up for a successful working career.

The entire system is about creating a very strong basic foundation which is all possible within your own home, providing a distraction-free environment for optimum learning.  It is my strong opinion that group classes in the initial stages of learning can be inhibiting and that the best way to teach a dog properly is to create a distraction-free environment at home. Once that is established, I will then teach you how to allow increasing distractions to enhance and solidify your dog’s target behaviours, and lock them in.

An exciting aspect of this system is that it rapidly improves your relationship with your dog and maintains harmony throughout his life. A system that is to a large degree maintenance free because the behaviours are thoroughly understood by the dog and are not pressure based. A dog subjected to pressure based training systems the quickly learns to dislike the exercise.

I will also show you the use of prompts and containment fields to assist the concept of errorless learning, and how modern training aids only amplify your dog’s responses, with a thoughtful application. The learning systems are designed for people who want to establish a great working relationship with their dog, control their family pet, compete at a high level or improve and manage their Tactical Police Dog.

About the Presenter

Kris Kotsopoulos has been involved in breeding and training dogs since 1981. He has worked with first-time dog owners through to the most demanding Law Enforcement Canines and their handlers, and World Championship Competitors. Kris and his wife Tonia are breeders of Dobermanns and German Shepherds under the kennel name “Von Forell”. His dogs and training philosophies have been incorporated into many training systems by competitors and Law Enforcement Agencies worldwide.

Kris’s workshops are designed to give you a clear directive of how dogs learn, what drives them, how to improve learning due to purposeful directives, and how to shape behaviour for a dynamic, focused and harmonious performance. This is an opportunity to learn the latest cutting edge training systems to deliver spirited, obedient animals on cue.

Having devoted over 30 years of his life to research, development and education of the working dog, paired with extensive work in the area of animal welfare, Kris has now expanded his professional horizons by sharing his knowledge with the community as a consultant for a range of government agencies, breed, IPO clubs and animal welfare groups.

Over the past three decades, Kris has travelled the globe in order to learn from the world’s best international trainers, breeders and animal behaviourists. As a result of his enthusiasm and dedication for greater knowledge, Kris has acquired an in-depth understanding of raising, developing and training dogs for a variety of purposes.

Through the skills and successes he has achieved, Kris has gained a sound understanding of what motivates animals to behave the way they do and just as importantly, how to apply this knowledge to achieve specialised goals. Kris currently shares this knowledge by operating both National and International training programs, seminars and workshops, each individually tailored to meet the needs of the general community, other trainers and government agencies globally.

Kris has implemented a variety of learning systems ranging from basic family obedience to the most demanding competition, police, prison and professional security animals with an emphasis on true, open and uncomplicated behaviour with stimulus control. He is truly committed to breaking down barriers that exist for dogs and dog welfare in our community and believes that consultation with breed clubs, animal management officers and animal welfare groups will help achieve this goal.

“Purposeful, meaningful relationships between handlers and their dogs to create extraordinary dogs and extraordinary handlers.”

Please email your request