I’ve finally finished posting my notes from the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference at UNT. ORCA puts on an awesome conference every year, but I thought this year was one of the best! You can read all of my notes from the conference by visiting this page. We had great talks from Joe Layng, Bob Bailey, Alexandra Kurland, Ken Ramirez, Steve White, and Kay Laurence.

This year I’ve added a newsletter to my site. If you haven’t joined it yet, I encourage you to join by filling out the form to the right or by visiting this page. Every Monday I send out a short newsletter that lists the blog posts from the previous week, as well as bits of additional information about what I’m up to with my animals.

In this past week’s newsletter, I talked a bit about how I’ve just started training Amy, one of my new rats. I also asked my newsletter subscribers what they think about and do when they first start training a new animal. Since asking that, I’ve been corresponding by e-mail with one friend, Paula. Here’s part of her answer to this question: “The first and most important thing is for them to know I think they are wonderful.”

I asked her if I could share this quote because I thought this was a great statement and a wonderful attitude. I know of many training situations that would have gone much easier and much more successfully if the trainer had started with the assumption that the animal was wonderful and if the animal already had learned that the trainer liked him and wanted him to be successful.

What do you think about when you begin training? What assumptions and ideas do you have when you first start interacting with an animal?

Now, a bit about bicycling with horses, because I know you’ve been wondering about the title of this post!

My friend Hertha recently sent me a great video of her horse Boots. Recently, she and Boots have been going for bicycle rides together! Letting Boots trot along beside her is a great way for both of them to go on outings and get a bit of exercise. However, this definitely required a well thought out teaching process!

Here’s Hertha’s description of her bicycling video:

Since my hips have given up riding and my knees have given up decent running, I’ve taken to my bike to help my horse maintain some good sustained movement that is more interesting for her than circles.

Free-shaping means giving positive reinforcement when the horse displays behaviour you want to encourage. The treat earned causes the horse to display more of the behaviour that earns the treats. Once the horse gets comfortable with the new behaviour and offers it willingly, the treats can be spaced increasingly further apart. On our 3km trip with the bike we only stopped twice for a nibble of grass and a bit of apple.

Watch on YouTube: Free-shaping: Boots and the Bicycle

Since watching the video, I’ve corresponded a bit with Hertha about how she taught this to Boots. I was impressed by how calm Boots was in the video, since I’ve known many horses who were terrified of bicycles. Apparently, Boots wasn’t always this calm around bikes!

Several years ago, when Hertha originally taught Boots about bicycles, she had to break the process down into lots of little steps. She started with her son riding a bike and her and Boots following (with Boots on a lead rope). It took awhile before Boots was confident enough to approach the bike.

Once Boots would approach the bike, Hertha had her son walk with the bike, so Boots would feel confident to approach closer. Eventually, Boots even offered to sniff the tire. After that, they did lots of ‘follow the bike’ at the walk and jog, and continued to practice ‘sniffing the bike’, until Boots was completely relaxed around the bike. Then, Hertha switched things up so that she was the one riding the bike. She practiced riding toward and away from Boots, until she could ride right up to her and give her a treat.

This is one of the coolest behaviors that I’ve seen in awhile for a creative way to exercise a horse. Do you have any unique or unusual behaviors that you are teaching your animals right now? If so, I’d love to hear about them!

Behavior analyst Dr. Joe Layng gave the keynote speech at the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. I absolutely loved this talk and it gave me plenty to think about regarding training animals and teaching people. If you are not familiar with Joe, I encourage you to check out his bio on the ORCA website. He is an expert in the design of instruction. One of his recent projects has been the Headsprout reading program, a computer-based program that teaches children to read fluently in about 30 hours of instruction. Joe’s talk at the conference focused on how we talk about training and how we train others to train. These notes cover a few of the things Joe discussed in his talk that I think are essential to think about when we are training animal trainers.

Teaching discriminations and concepts: When is a chair a chair?

When training animals and when training trainers, we are often teaching concepts. For example, you might teach a trainer the concept of reinforcer delivery: how to reward the animal with food, playtime, or another preferred item after a successful behavior. Likewise, an animal new to training has to learn many basic concepts at the beginning of training, such as how and when to get the treat or other reinforcer.

Joe used two examples here to illustrate his main points, a hypothetical geometric figure called a zepp and the concept of a chair. Pause for a moment before you read on. What makes a chair, a chair? How would you describe a chair to someone from Mars, so that they would be able to identify an object as a chair every time they saw one?

When teaching concepts, trainers and teachers often are good at giving examples. However, according to Joe, the critical part to teaching concepts is to teach both examples and non-examples. Many teachers forget to teach enough non-examples. Non-examples are essential for learning because people learn concepts through recognizing the differences and discrepancies between examples and non-examples.

When teaching, examples and non-examples should be given in pairs that differ by just one essential property. This will help emphasize what the person needs to learn. If examples and non-examples are completely different, it will be impossible for the learner to pick out the critical features.

Also, a trainer needs to distinguish between and teach “must have” features and “can have” features. For example, a chair must have a back and a seat. However, it can be brown, black, or even hot pink. The learner must not only know which features are essential and which features can’t occur, but must also recognize which features can vary (such as color, in the chair example).

What are you doing?

Think about the last time you talked to another animal trainer about training. What sorts of words did you use? Did you use words such as reinforcement, shaping, targeting, consequence, or other words that might be considered “jargon” to someone who didn’t know much about animal training?

We use words like this because we assume the other person will know what we are talking about. However, Joe cautioned that teachers and trainers often take for granted that they all mean the same thing and are talking about the same thing, when sometimes they might not be.

For example, imagine someone told you that he “reinforced his dog for sitting” or that another person told you that she “used targeting to teach the horse to step into the trailer.” Do you know exactly what happened in each of these situations?

What if the first person told you that reinforcement doesn’t work for teaching dogs to sit or the second person told you that targeting doesn’t work for teaching horses to trailer load?

Often, there is confusion during teaching, as well as confusion when discussing training scenarios and problems, because trainers are not clear about describing exactly what happened. In the first example, lots of different things could have been going on. The dog might not have liked the treat, the trainer could have actually been punishing the behavior, or the trainer, because of poor timing, could have actually been accidentally reinforcing a behavior other than sitting.

In order to effectively teach others about training and in order to help people troubleshoot when things go wrong, trainers must learn to be very precise about describing the procedures and methods they use when training. Be very careful when using jargon, even when you think the other person will know what you mean. When giving instructions or explaining a procedure, make sure the other person understands the exact steps and requirements that are needed to make that procedure work successfully.

Using feedback effectively

This was one of my favorite parts of Joe Layng’s talk. Everyone has been in a situation where they have had to give another person feedback on the person’s performance. Joe distinguished between two types of feedback—confirmatory feedback and instructional feedback.

Confirmatory feedback: Feedback that tells the person that they did the behavior correctly.

Instructional feedback: Feedback that tells the person how to change or improve her behavior for the next time she does the behavior.

Now, most people use both types of feedback pretty haphazardly. This is not a very effective way to teach or train. Researchers, as well as expert teachers, have shown that confirmatory feedback will be most successful if it is given immediately after the behavior. Instructional feedback, on the other hand, works most successfully when it is given immediately before the person does the behavior the next time.

If you must be delayed in giving confirmatory feedback, don’t be vague or general! If you do this, the feedback will have little effect on the person’s behavior in the future. Instead, make sure you specify the exact situation and the particular behavior that you want to identify as a job well done.

This is my last post in my series of posts about the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. I encourage you to visit this page to check out the rest of my notes from the 4th conference, as well as my notes from the 1st and 2nd conferences.

If you’ve been around enough clicker trainers and positive animal trainers, you’ll find that everyone has an opinion about shaping, luring and targeting. And, trainers often don’t agree about which of these methods are best for training or if certain ones of these methods should even be used at all. Kay Laurence gave a very interesting lecture about this subject at the 4th Annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. This post is some of my notes and thoughts from her lecture.

Ways to get behavior: Shaping, luring and targeting

Shaping, luring, and targeting are three possible ways for teaching an animal a new behavior. Many clicker trainers are big fans of shaping, but have various opinions regarding how much a trainer should use luring or targeting. Here are a few definitions, just so we’re all on the same page.

Shaping: The trainer waits for the animal to do any approximation of a behavior and rewards these attempts. The trainer moves through a progression of steps, each step being closer to the final goal. This method is the most self-directed of the three methods that will be discussed in this post and the animal has the least guidance from the trainer. (Here’s a video of a rat being shaped to do a simple behavior.)

Luring: The trainer uses a piece of food to guide the animal through the motions of the behavior. During this method, the animal is highly dependent on the trainer for guidance and direction. After the initial training, the lure is gradually removed. (This video shows a finished behavior that was originally taught using luring.)

Targeting: The trainer teaches the animal to touch a target. Then, the target is used to initiate the behavior or to guide the animal through the behavior. Depending on how the target is used, this method can be a more trainer-directed type of learning or a more self-directed type of learning. (Here are several video examples of using targets during training.)

The test: Which method is best?

Kay Laurence wanted to know which of these methods was the best for teaching a behavior. Would self-taught (free-shaped) behavior be more reliable or resilient? Would luring result in an animal who fixated on the food and didn’t actually learn the behavior? Could a trainer get the same end result no matter which method the trainer used to teach the behavior?

To test these ideas, Kay taught three behaviors to three of her border collies. The three behaviors were stepping into a box, going out and around a cone, and walking along a line on the ground. Each behavior was taught to one dog using luring, one dog using shaping, and one dog using targeting. So, for example, the first dog was taught to step in the box using luring, to go around the cone using shaping, and to walk along the line using targeting.

What were the results?

All three methods were successful for training and all the dogs were able to learn all of the behaviors, regardless of the teaching method used. However, the learning process and final outcome were slightly different for each dog and each behavior, depending on the teaching method.

Over all, Kay reported that the shaping method seemed more successful for teaching the step into the box behavior and the luring method seemed more successful for teaching the walking along the line. All three methods worked equally as well for teaching the dogs to go around a cone.

So, for a trainer who is skilled in all three methods, one of these three methods of teaching is not necessarily better than the other two. When deciding what training method to use, you should consider the particulars of the behavior, as well as other factors that might affect the teaching process and the outcome.

Choices, choices, choices

So, if all three of these methods can work, how does a trainer know which one to choose? When formulating a training plan, begin by considering all your options. Consider your skills, the animal’s skills, the particulars of the behavior, and your relationship with the animal.

These different methods require different skills on the part of the animal and on the part of the trainer. For example, for luring to be successful, the animal has to have learned a high degree of discipline around food and the trainer needs to understand how to fade out food lures. For shaping to be successful, the trainer must be able to anticipate behavior and avoid frustrating the learner. For targeting to be successful, the trainer must have the mechanical skills to handle the target, clicker, and food, all at the same time.

Kay gave a list of four considerations when choosing between these three training methods. A trainer must think about:
1) The trainer’s mechanical skills and the mechanics of the behavior
2) The confidence of the learner
3) The skill of the teacher
4) The future use of the behavior

Some behaviors logically need more guidance or direction from the trainer. Most of us would not want to be free-shaped if we were being taught to use a chain saw or to scuba dive! Likewise, when training animals, some types of errors can be costly. Luring or targeting can often be used to minimize certain types of errors, since the trainer can more carefully direct the animal. On the other hand, for some behaviors, it might be much better to shape the behavior.

Be careful about discounting any one of these methods. I’ve heard some people say that shaping doesn’t work, other people say that targeting doesn’t work, and still other people say that luring doesn’t work. One reason why people say these things is that each of these three methods has lots of different variations. And, some of these variations work better than others, or work better in some situations than other situations, or work better for some trainers than other trainers, depending on the trainer’s skill level and the trainer’s history with the animal.

Is luring evil?

I’m only half joking with the heading of this section. Of these three methods, luring, by far, has the worst reputation. I’ve met many trainers who seem to think that luring is awful and should never, ever be used when training.

Kay Laurence believes that most clicker trainers dismiss luring because they have not learned good luring skills. Most people try to “lump” when they lure and train a behavior in one big piece. (What is lumping?) To be good at luring, a trainer still needs to know how to split behavior down into small pieces and needs to know how to efficiently fade out the lure.

I’ve seen some brilliant video clips of Kay and her students teaching complex behaviors using luring and then quickly and quietly fading out the lure and adding in a cue. Also, in the experiment discussed above, Kay was able to quickly start to fade out the lure because of each dog’s history with training and shaping.

A few final thoughts

Don’t discount a teaching method too quickly because it has not worked for you (or others you have known). See first how expert trainers use the method. Are they able to get results? What do they do differently that makes the technique work well? Do you like how the final behavior looks?

Want to get better at training? Watch the experts. See how they get behavior and see how they use each of these three methods. Then go practice with your own animals. Videotape yourself (or have a friend watch you) and try to decide how you could improve your shaping, targeting, and/or luring skills. Do you already know areas you could be practicing?

Which of these three methods, shaping, targeting, and luring do you use most often? Do you ever combine two of these together? What influences you when you are deciding what method to use when training a new behavior?

At the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal training conference, Steve White talked about training choices and how they’re made. During his lecture he discussed the hows and whys of choosing different training tools and techniques.

I love listening to Steve White speak. If you’re not familiar with Steve, he’s a dog trainer from Seattle. He’s also an excellent speaker. Steve has worked with police departments training police dogs, drug dogs, and bomb dogs. This kind of training requires a great amount of precision and skill—the security and safety of many people depend on these dogs doing their jobs quickly and accurately. During his talk at the conference this year, Steve drew some interesting parallels between dog training and law enforcement. This post will be a few snippets from his talk that I found particularly interesting and have been thinking about.

The Law Enforcement Model

Steve talked a bit about how law enforcement officers must work. In any situation, an officer must do three things. He or she must assess the situation, formulate a plan of action, and then act on it. Often, this must all be done very quickly! The officer has to scan the situation and gather as much information as possible in a short amount of time, and then begin working toward an appropriate solution. Animal training is pretty similar. Although we aren’t often trying to catch bad guys or working in life or death situations, a trainer often must operate under similar conditions. When an animal trainer is called in to solve a problem, the trainer often needs to quickly come up with an effective starting point or solution, even though the trainer usually does not have the whole story of what’s been going on.

Steve said that in law enforcement situations, the officer must continuously assess the situation and select the most reasonable option relative to the circumstances as perceived at that point in time. This statement offers a lot of reminders related to good animal training! Let’s look at two parts of this statement:

Continuous assessment: First, an animal trainer must continuously assess the training situation and make changes immediately, if needed. Good trainers has a well mapped out training plan. However, a great trainer is able to reevaluate a situation and make changes to that training plan, as needed.

Most reasonable option: Sometimes, the best, most perfect, ideal training option is not available. The trainer might lack information about the situation, certain resources, or cooperation from certain people. It’s important to remember that we live in the “real world.” For most training situations, there never will be a “perfect” option. However, we can evaluate the best options and make sure we select the most reasonable option that has the highest chance of being successful for the animal.

Susan Friedman’s Three Prong Test

Steve said that trainers often are tools of last resort. People call up the trainer when they can’t solve a problem on their own and have exhausted the options of their friends and their dog training books. When making training decisions, we need to devise solutions by considering effectiveness, intrusiveness, and social acceptability. This three-pronged test for evaluating training plans comes from bird trainer Susan Friedman. However, it’s a good test to keep in mind when training any species!

Effectiveness: Did (or will) your training program work? Will the results last over time? Did you train the appropriate behaviors in all situations that they will be needed in? Will it be easy for you or the client to continue to maintain the newly trained behaviors?

Intrusiveness: How much does the training plan disturb and interfere with the owner and animal’s daily life? Remember, simple training solutions are usually better than more complex or complicated ones. How much control does the learner have over the training process? How much, if any, does your training program rely on restraint, confinement, deprivation or other procedures that alter the animal’s normal routine?

Social acceptability: Are both your training plan and the results of the training socially and culturally acceptable? Did you meet the client’s expectations? If the client feels uncomfortable with your training procedures or the results the client is not going to follow through with your program.

If you are a professional trainer, these three points are great things to consider when designing training programs for your clients and their animals. However, even if you aren’t a professional trainer, these points are important to consider for your training programs for your own animals. Does your plan work well without being too intrusive into the animal’s life? Do the results benefit the animal, as well as you?

Also, in most situations, other people also interact with our animals. This could include spouses, children, friends, veterinarians, and others. If you are designing training plans, think about Susan Friedman’s three prong test and consider whether your training program is going to be effective, non-intrusive, and socially acceptable for the other individuals who interact with your animals. If your answer is no, you might want to consider altering your training plan so that others who interact with the animal will be able to help you maintain the behaviors you train. Or, you might want to consider simple ways to train these people so that they can be helpful.

Do you find this model helpful? What additional considerations do you think are important when designing and implementing training programs for your own animals or for client’s animals?

This was the second year that Phung Luu spoke at the Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. Phung Luu is a very talented bird trainer. Last year, at the 3rd annual conference, Phung spoke about errorless learning. This year, he gave a very interesting talk about Modal Action Patterns. He discussed what are Modal Action Patterns and how trainers can use them.

What is a Modal Action Pattern (MAP)?

A modal action pattern is a genetic-like behavior or chain of behaviors that is triggered by a particular stimulus. Modal action patterns are also called fixed action patterns (FAP). However, Phung explained that some researchers are moving toward using the term modal action pattern instead of fixed action pattern because they want to recognize and emphasize that all behaviors, even highly stereotypic, species-specific patterns of behavior, are still somewhat flexible.

Common examples of MAPs and FAPs include the mating dances of many species, some types of displays of aggression, the pointing and herding instincts of some breeds of dogs, spider web building, and when a baby bird pecks at an adult’s beak so that the adult bird will regurgitate food. One example of a MAP that shows the flexibility of these types of behaviors is a bird’s nest building behavior. Birds “instinctively” know how to build nests. However, most people don’t realize that this behavior is still quite flexible and that a bird’s nest building behavior improves over the years with practice.

Here’s what trainers need to remember about MAPs and FAPs. Most animals have stereotypic or set behavior patterns that are characteristic to that species. Animal trainers need to be aware of these behaviors so that they can manage them, or even use them to their advantage. As well, if trainers aren’t aware of these types of behaviors, they are likely to get in trouble. Although the basic principles of training apply to every species, MAPs are one reason why before you begin working with a new species, it is important to spend time studying that species and becoming familiar with that species’ behaviors.

Using MAPs to Your Advantage When Training Animals

When training animals, you can use MAPs to reduce behavior you don’t want or to encourage behavior that you do want. One example Phung Luu discussed involved a jaw popping behavior that dolphins do. Researchers use to think that the jaw popping sound was caused entirely by the physical movement of the jaw popping. However, they later realized that the dolphins had a special vocalization that accompanied the jaw pop behavior. Phung discussed how Ken Ramirez worked with scientists and other trainers to teach dolphins to do this behavior on cue. This allowed researchers working on dolphin vocalization to closely study a new type of dolphin vocalization that had not been previously studied.

Phung also discussed how he has used MAPs with aggressive Andean condors. Condors are big birds, with up to a 10 foot wing span. Phung showed a few videos of these birds in his lecture. They were gorgeous birds, but I wouldn’t want to get too close to an aggressive one! One behavior that young condors do is a wing pumping behavior. This is a friendly behavior that is often done to older animals. Phung knew that condors never wing pump and aggress at the same time. So, in several aggressive condors, Phung has shaped up the wing pump behavior. He has used this behavior to decrease aggression, while teaching the bird how to interact positively with people. He starts slowly, by first reinforcing any small wing movements and then shaping the bird to lift his wings. The wing pump gives the bird an alternative behavior to do while people are present and teaches the bird a positive way to interact with people, without having to be aggressive.

Phung’s lecture gave me a lot to think about regarding how we can use “natural” behaviors to improve our training. Many times we only think of these types of behaviors as getting in the way of training. Have you used MAPs or natural species behaviors to your advantage when you are training? If not, can you think of some ways that you might be able to incorporate some of these ideas into your training?

We got a treat at the Art and Science of Animal Training Conference this year. Ken Ramirez, who is head trainer at the Shedd aquarium in Chicago, spoke once again. As well, this year he was joined by Steve Aibel and Mike Pool, two trainers from SeaWorld San Antonio. These three trainers have years of experience working with dolphins and other marine mammals. They packed a ton of excellent information into their hour long presentation. Here are notes from two of my favorite sections of their presentation.

Dealing with “Oops” Moments: The Least Reinforcing Scenario

One thing that Ken Ramirez talked about during his lecture was the LRS, or the Least Reinforcing Scenario. One dilemma many trainers have is what to do when the animal makes a “mistake.” In these situations, traditional trainers often are quick to use to punishment. However, positive reinforcement trainers are often hesitant (for good reason) to resort to punishment. It is hard to force a dolphin to do anything or to try to punish a dolphin’s behavior, when the animal can just swim away. As well, punishment can have unwanted side effects. In the early days of positive reinforcement training, marine mammal trainers, out of necessity, had to find ways to work with animals without using punishment. According to Ken, the LRS technique can be particularly useful when working with large animals or when we don’t really want to tell an animal “no.”

So, what is an LRS? An LRS is the Least Reinforcing Scenario. What this means is that when the animal does a behavior the trainer doesn’t want, the trainer gives a brief and immediate pause, where no reinforcers are provided and the animal does not have a chance to do anything to earn reinforcement. Immediately after this, the trainer always provides an easy opportunity for the animal to earn reinforcement, to get the training game going again.

What does this look like in practice? Ken showed several videos of him using an LRS while training a sea lion. He was practicing a handful of different cues for behaviors that had been previously trained. If the sea lion made a “mistake,” he would pause for two seconds. Then, immediately after the pause, he would give a cue for an easy behavior that he knew the sea lion would be able to do successfully. The easy behavior was then reinforced.

To use a LRS successfully, it needs to be brief and immediate. Ken said trainers often are tempted to extend the length of time—he cautioned against doing this. This is often emotional responding on the part of the trainer and won’t make the procedure more effective. As well, an LRS doesn’t mean that you ignore the animal or turn away from the animal. During the LRS the trainer just pauses–any movement or change in the environment could accidentally reinforce the behavior. As well, the trainer continues to monitor the animal during the pause.

A Least Reinforcing Scenario is effective for trainers like Ken because they are training at a very high rate of reinforcement. By providing a short pause, the LRS briefly interrupts the rhythm or flow of the training session. If you do not have a high rate of reinforcement during your training session or if the animal is often making “mistakes,” you should not be using an LRS. Instead, you need to reevaluate the training situation or your shaping program to determine what changes you can make to help the animal be more successful.

An LRS also works for trainers like Ken Ramirez because they have a long history of positive reinforcement with the animal and because, when using an LRS, they immediately offer an opportunity for reinforcement after the LRS. The LRS gives a structured way to ignore unwanted behavior with an animal who understands positive reinforcement training. An LRS shouldn’t be used when training a new behavior or when you first start training with a new animal. As well, providing an immediate opportunity for reinforcement immediately following the LRS teaches the animal to continue to focus on you during the LRS.

The Least Reinforcing Scenario can also be used as an evaluation tool for the trainer. If you are using an LRS, you should be taking data during your training sessions on how often you use the LRS and which behaviors you use it for. This is important information that will help you structure the next training session. If you had to use an LRS multiple times in a session or multiple times for a particular behavior, don’t blame the animal! Instead, take this as an indicator that the animal either didn’t understand what you were asking or didn’t feel comfortable performing the behavior. In either case, you probably need to change your training plan during the next session, rather than blaming the animal or continuing to use an LRS.

Using HELPRS to Plan Your Training Program

Steve Aibel and Mike Pool talked at length about what animals need. Animals have three main types of needs, physical needs, social needs, and mental needs. We can meet many of our animal’s mental needs by well designed training programs and well designed environments that keep animals mentally stimulated.

It is really important for trainers to remember and consider all three types of needs, physical, social and mental. Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in what you want the animal to do or in what behavior you need to train for a particular situation or task. However, trainers also need to stop and evaluate if they are just training something that they need, or whether the training program also meets the animal’s needs.

Steve and Mike shared an acronym that they use when designing long term training plans for their dolphins and other marine mammals. The acronym is HELPRS. Here’s what each letter is for:

Husbandry
Exercise
Learn
Play
Relationship
Show

For each animal, they design training plans and goals for each of these six areas. For many of their animals, they want to train performance behaviors for the shows at SeaWorld. However, they also make sure they spend just as much time designing training plans and then scheduling training sessions to work on behaviors related to husbandry, exercise, learning, play, and relationships.

The HELPRS acronym is a great guide to consider when writing training goals and at the beginning of each week, day and training session. Have a set plan of what area (or areas) you are going to target in each training session. This is a useful model because it can help you balance your training program and make sure you are meeting all of your animal’s physical, social and mental needs. Steve and Mike said to remember that “Your animal’s quality of life depends on you!” Trainers have a responsibility to make sure they are providing a high quality of life for their animals.

I talked recently about some of Bob Bailey’s suggestions for taking data in my post about “Advanced Dog Training.” If you need ideas for taking data, I suggest reading some of the great comments that were left on that post by some of my readers. I’d love to hear how you plan what to work on during a training session. Do you have a long term plan or long term goals for your animal? How do you keep track of your progress on your long term goals? Which of the areas of HELPRS do you focus on the most? Are there any of the areas of HELPRS that you think you should be focusing on more?

Training can be a lot of fun. However, it can also be physically and mentally challenging for both the animal and the human. Although breaks are needed, they can really disrupt a training session if they are used haphazardly. Trainers need to think carefully about breaks and learn how to effectively incorporate breaks without interrupting the flow of the training.

At the conference, Alexandra Kurland discussed how to give breaks during training sessions. The full title of her talk was “Give me a break: How to give breaks without giving breaks.” At the beginning of her talk, Alexandra explained that she doesn’t really like breaks. However, breaks are good for learning. So, she explained ways we can give breaks without really taking breaks.

Why take breaks?

After a break, many trainers report an improvement in the behavior they are training or an increase in learning. A break gives both the horse and the human time to process the training session. Also, many trainers forget that breaks are just as useful for humans as for horses.

For instance, when people are new to clicker training, Alexandra recommends that they start training in short sessions, 10-15 treats. A short beak after each short session lets the human evaluate what just happened and plan what to do for the next 10 clicks. This is also great for teaching self-control to horses who are new to clicker training. Some horses get uncertain or unsure when the clicker training session ends. Taking breaks teaches the horse that the person or the treats can sometimes go away, but they will both come back again.

What’s a break? Using favorite behaviors as breaks

What comes to mind when you think about breaks? You might be thinking about resting and doing nothing or you could also associate breaks with stopping and interruptions. However, the main point of Alexandra’s lecture was that breaks don’t have to be “breaks.”

For example, other behaviors can be used as breaks, especially known behaviors that the animal really enjoys doing. You’ve probably seen dog trainers doing this—-a trainer might take a break from practicing agility and let a dog play with a tug toy for several minutes.

Any previously learned behavior that the animal likes and is comfortable doing can be used as a break. For example, if you’ve seen Alexandra’s microshaping DVD, she used a target to give the horse short breaks from equine pilates, which is physically challenging for the horse. After a handful of good repetitions of microshaping the pilates behavior, the trainer switches to targeting and gives the horse several clicks and treats for touching the target.

Breaks don’t have to be long. Sometimes even a very short break can be beneficial for both the horse and trainer. Alexandra showed one video clip of a clicker trainer working with her horse on a circle of cones. The trainer would take very short breaks every now and then and pause a bit to stroke the horse on his face. Alexandra suggested thinking about breaks as punctuation marks in a sentence.

More Benefits of Breaks

Breaks can function as reinforcers. This is especially true when we are creating structured breaks that involve activities that the animal really enjoys. For example, in the pilates mircoshaping work that I discussed above, Alexandra does not give the breaks randomly or at set intervals. Instead, she uses short breaks (during which the horse gets to touch the target to earn reinforcers) to mark improvements in the behavior she is currently teaching. While training, try to think about giving breaks at clickable moments. This is related to Alexandra’s loopy training concept, which she talked a bit about in her presentation.

Breaks can also be used to mark a transition to new criteria. So, if a horse is doing very well with a behavior, the trainer can give a break, and then move on to something slightly different after the break. This helps the trainer be clearer to the horse about when criteria are changing. This is something I’ve been thinking a bit about. If a trainer did this consistently–increasing criteria after a break–would the horse learn this concept and start offering more or different behavior after the break? I’ve never played with this idea consistently, but I can see how it could be beneficial when training new behaviors.

How do you break up long sessions when you are training? Do you take breaks during sessions? If so, what do you do during the breaks? Are you systematic about how you structure your breaks? Have you experimented with different ways to set up sessions or take breaks?

Try “simple” dog training!

Whether training dogs, horses, birds, or other species, many trainers seem to be in a hurry to get to advanced training. This post is some of my notes from Bob Bailey’s lecture at the 4th Annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. The full title of Bob’s talk was “Looking for advanced dog training? Try simple dog training for a change – it really works!” A rather long title, but a rather interesting one! Please check back throughout the week, as I will be posting notes from the rest of the conference.

Complicated training versus simple training

Bob Bailey explained that even very complex or complicated tasks can be broken down into very simple stages or components. This is a key piece to good training, but is also something that can take time and practice to learn. If something seems too complicated or hard for you or the animal, rethink your training plan! Can you change the environment, alter your training plan, or teach addition prerequisite skills so that what seemed difficult is now simpler? Usually, the answer is yes. However, it sometimes takes a bit of creativity or problem solving to find a better solution.

Bob Bailey talked a bit during his presentation about his work with the U.S. Navy. When Bob worked for the navy, he trained dolphins for all day missions in the open ocean. A dolphin has to have a very high level of training to be able to follow instructions all day in the ocean and not choose to swim away. However, even this kind of “advanced” training begins simply with teach smaller building blocks and fundamental skills. Putting together and then successfully carrying out a training plan for a task like this will require a lot of careful thinking on the trainer’s part.

As Bob likes to say, training should be simple, but it is not necessarily easy. It is easy for people to start making things more complicated, but it takes practice to be able to break things down and make things simple.

Animal training: craft vs. technology

People have been training animals for millions of years! Bob showed a few pictures of 20,000-year-old cave paintings that showed that people were already caring for and interacting with dogs. However, for most of history, dog training (as well as the training of other species) has been a craft, not a technology.

In the past century, animal training has started to become a technology. Because of behavior analytic research (What is behavior analysis?) we understand processes such as reinforcement and punishment and why certain training methods work. Trainers should study the science of training. Studying the principles of training will improve your training, help you understand why certain methods work, and help you come up with creative solutions when you encounter new problems.

However, Bob Bailey also cautioned us to not become too “intellectualized” about training methods. Some trainers today have studied the science of training, but have not spent enough time actually practicing training. Although they can talk about training, these trainers still lack the mechanical skills and observational skills needed to be great trainers. Bob says–Don’t be guilty of knowing but not doing. There is only so much we can learn from books or watching others train. At some point, you have to get out there and practice your training.

Simple ways to improve your training

During his talk, Bob Bailey suggested a few very simple ways that animal trainers could greatly improve their training. These are simple suggestions. However, many of the trainers I know don’t do these.

First, before training a behavior, clearly and objectively define the behavior. If the behavior has several teaching steps or several final components, define these too. Know exactly what you want the behavior to look like so that someone else could read your behavior goal, watch the animal, and be able to say with certainty whether or not the animal was doing the behavior correctly. Also, clearly define what your final signals or cues will be. Importantly, write all of this down! Don’t just try to remember it in your head.

Next, if you can, video your training. If you can’t do this all the time, do it as much as you can or at the very least try and find a friend who can watch you train. Video will help you improve your observational and mechanical skills. Videos will also help you identify problem areas or things that could be changed or improved. A lot happens even in a short training session and you can miss quite a bit while training that you might be able to catch if you could watch back through a video.

Finally, take data. I find that the idea of taking data scares a lot of trainers. “Taking data” seems pretty complicated or complex. Data sheets, measurement, charts, and graphs–thinking about taking data can be a bit overwhelming. However, Bob thinks that animal trainers can find simple, but meaningful ways to take data.

Bob suggested a very easy way for trainers to take data. Buy a small notebook that you can stick in a back pocket. Before starting a training session, jot down what you are going to do. After the training session, write down how the session went and what you actually did. Also, write down the approximate length of the session and how many reinforcers you used. This is a pretty simple way to take data without a whole lot of extra time or effort. But, it should give you meaningful information about how your training is progressing and ideas about what changes you should make.

Do you take data or notes about your training sessions? If so, what kinds of notes or data do you take? I’d love to hear more ideas about simple ways to record training sessions.

Horses can see some colors. However, they don’t see color like humans do. Humans and other primates have what is called trichromatic color vision because they have three types of cone cells in their eyes. The most common form of color vision in non-primate mammals, including horses, is dichromatic color vision. Horses and other animals with this type of vision only have two types of cone cells in their eyes.

The diagram to the right shows the hues that normal humans can see and the hues that horses can see. Normal humans can see four basic color hues–red, green, blue, and yellow. They can also see lots of intermediate hues between each of these primary hues. A horse’s vision is similar to a person who is red-green color blind. Horses can only see blues and yellows. However, unlike a human, a horse can probably not see any intermediate hues.

The four photos below come from the journal article. The two top photos are “regular” photos, as a normal human would see the world. The two bottom photos have been doctored so that they approximate how a horse would likely see the world. In addition to altering the colors, the sharpness of the photos have also been doctored to match a horse’s vision.

Notice how some things that jump out in the top photos are difficult to see in the bottom photos. For example, in the top photo, the child on the right is wearing a very bright jacket. However, in the bottom photo, the horse sees the jacket as a shade of grey. Knowing how your horse sees the world is important for training and riding. Since horses see the world very differently than us, they will react differently than we might expect them to in certain situations.

(click on the image to view a larger version)

Diagram and photos are from:
Carroll, J., Murphy, C. J., Neitz, M., Ver Hoeve, J. N., Neitz, J. (2001). Photopigment basis for dichromatic color vision in the horse. Journal of Vision, 1, 80-87.

Some of you know that I am involved with ORCA (the Organization for Reinforcement Contingencies with Animals), which is a group at the University of North Texas that does projects and research related to animal training. This is our yearly conference and is definitely an awesome conference–ORCA brings in the top animal trainers from all over the world, including Bob Bailey, Alexandra Kurland, Kay Laurence, Ken Ramirez, Phung Luu, and Steve White. I’m especially excited about this year’s keynote speaker, behavior analyst Joe Layng. His talk is titled “How we talk about and teach what we do.”

We’ve been working hard all year to plan this conference, so it is very exciting that it is finally here. Also, I’m excited because we should have quite a group of horse clicker trainers at this year’s conference. If you’re coming to the conference, please come find me and say “hi.” If you can’t come, I hope you’ll follow us on twitter. I’ll also be posting some of my thoughts and notes after the conference, in the next week or two.

If you’re interested in learning more about these conferences, I have notes from the 1st and 2nd conference in the clicker training clinics and conferences section of my site.