On the Thursday before ClickerExpo, Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz and I gave a one-day PORTL workshop to an excellent group of about 40 Karen Pryor Academy trainers. Here’s one interesting idea that came up during our discussions. As we interact with our animal or human learners, the patterns of behavior we reinforce can sometimes unknowingly create […]
Occasionally when I am at the barn, I realize that I have forgotten something that is still in the tack room. Apollo, of course, can’t come in the tack room with me. Until recently, I have had two options for what I can do in this situation. Option 1: I can give him some feed […]
Apollo and I have been working on Alexandra Kurland’s “the grown-ups are talking” exercise. This is a polite manners exercise that teaches the horse to stand calmly next to you for an extended duration of time with his head straight ahead. One important consideration when we first started this exercise was our training environment. When […]
When you are training an animal, you are working with another living creature. What happens during training is an interaction between this particular animal and your training plan. In some cases, the animal does something that you didn’t anticipate. I’ve been thinking this week about what happens when things don’t go as planned. What happens […]
I have some exciting news to share…. This summer and fall, a friend and I did some volunteer work at a local horse rescue. At the end of November, I adopted one of the horses from the rescue. Apollo is a middle-aged Arabian gelding. He’s been at the rescue since this past spring. Other than […]
At the end of September, Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz and I gave a two-day PORTL shaping workshop in San Diego. We had an awesome group of participants, and it was a really great weekend. Emily Larlham, who hosted the workshop, posted a video with some highlights from the event. (In the photo to the right, Emily’s […]
