Karen Pryor Academy Dog Training Professional Course

Kiki Yablon is a faculty member for the Karen Pryor Academy of Animal Training and Behavior, teaching the Dog Trainer Professional course for aspiring pro dog trainers. If you are a professional or aspiring professional who would like to work intensively with Kiki, this may be the way to do it. Listed below are the next opportunities to take the course with Kiki as your faculty member.

Kiki teaches the KPA “National” format, where instruction takes place online, with intensive coaching via video, for 6 months, and then the group meets for a 5-day in person workshop and assessments in the location; and the new “Virtual” format, where all meetings and workshops are held online.

My next series will be:

National format: Course starts in May 2026, with a 5-day in-person workshop in Fort Collins, CO, in November 2026. Apply here.

Conferences

Kiki will speak at ClickerExpo LIVE (virtual) and ClickerExpo New York in 2026. Registration is now open!

Seminars

It’s All Connected: Modern Loose Leash Walking LIVE!

For the past two years, Kiki has taught this five-week LIVE! (online) course for Karen Pryor Academy. The next course will be offered in October 2026 and you can sign up to be notified when it opens. It is appropriate for both pet guardians and trainers who teach them.

Loose-leash walking has evolved far beyond the old “obedience” picture of a dog trotting at heel. Today, a modern, dog-centric walk can look more like two partners moving together—responding to each other and the world—almost as if the leash weren’t there. It’s a dynamic, flexible dance that rewards clear communication with enriching experiences for the dog and the handler.

In this five-week LIVE class, Kiki will teach you essential component skills that can form a foundation for connected walks. You’ll learn why modern loose-leash walking often requires as much skill and awareness from both the dog and the handler than the rigid heeling styles of the past—and why that’s a good thing. 

You will also explore how to assemble these component behaviors into flowing sequences, adapt to changing environments, and reduce reliance on food reinforcement by incorporating naturally occurring rewards. Whether you’re a pet guardian or a professional trainer, this class will help you troubleshoot challenges and teach loose-leash skills that truly satisfy both ends of the leash.

Behavior Works’ Living and Learning With Animals

Kiki is a co-instructor for Dr. Susan Friedman’s 8-week course in behavior science for animal professionals. The next series will be in July 2026. Reserve your spot now!

Behavior Works’ Book Club

The Behavior Works Book Club is a guided reading group for animal professionals who want to deepen their grounding in the science of behavior change and its underlying philosophy. In the upcoming session, we will be reading About Behaviorism, which B. F. Skinner wrote for a popular audience in the mid-1970s. If you have only read or heard secondhand about what Skinner supposedly said or thought, you are in for a few surprises!

Members will read approximately one chapter per week, and meet once every two weeks for a discussion. Facilitator Kiki Yablon, MA, will provide study questions to consider while the reading and to inform discussion. 

There is no eligibility requirement to join, but graduates of Living and Learning with Animals will receive a $25 discount (see separate listing in shop).

Price: $200 plus a small processing fee for 12 weeks/6 two-hour meetings, or $175 for LLA graduates. 

This session of Book Club will officially begin Wednesday, May 16, with the first meeting on Wednesday, May 27.

Meetings are from 5 PM to 7 PM Central Time (Chicago, USA) on the following Wednesdays:

May 27, June 10, June 24, July 8, July 22, August 5

Register here.

Consulting With Fellow Professionals

If you would like to discuss a concept or a case with Kiki, contact us.

On-Demand Webinars

Kiki has a variety of webinars or conference-presentation recordings geared toward fellow professionals, available in a variety of places:

The Other End of the ABC: Antecedent-Forward Thinking for Clearer Training

“Clarity” is a concept; what it looks like is in training that the dog does what we are asking or expecting them to do in a particular situation. What causes them to do that is not clarity; it is genetics, learning history, and current conditions—and the way all three of those things interact with one another.

The current conditions, and future learning history, are what we have access to. How do we adjust those to help the dog be “clear” about what to do? We have it hammered into our heads that consequences drive behavior, and so that is often the first place we look when we want to change behavior: What kind of consequences do we provide to make it clear what behavior we want or don’t want?

But you know what else is learned via consequences? Antecedents. And they don’t just tell the learner which behavior to do. They can make other consequences more or less potent at a given time, they can combine to make each other mean different things, and—very important to the concept of “clarity”—they can signal what is and isn’t available to behave for at a given time. And that can reduce the need to use punishment or extinction to clarify what not to do.

This webinar should enrich your understanding of antecedents, and your ability to efficiently and humanely use that understanding in practice.

The live webinar was given on December 21, 2025, but for a limited time you can still purchase access to the recording for $40 here.

Conference Talks:

The following conference presentation recordings are available for purchase individually from ClickerTraining.com:

Your Dog Already Knows How: Teaching When, Where, and Why

Training With the Grain: Choosing Better Alternative Behaviors

Let the World Do the Work: Transitioning to "Natural" Reinforcement Contingencies

Now You Know Your ABCs: Putting Functional Assessment to WorkIn this presentation by Susan Friedman, Kiki presented a case study on addressing excessive barking during Zoom calls.

Animal Training Academy:

ATA is a great online training resource that produces regular webinars for its membership:

“Technological Description”: Why It Matters How You Explain What You Do is available to members of the Animal Training Academy community; trial memberships are $1.