Clicker Carnival #5

Welcome to the February 2010 edition of the clicker carnival. Below you’ll find a collection of great blog articles related to positive animal training. There are some great stories, as well as a few intriguing posts that I hope will really get you thinking. Check them all out and if you blog, we’d love for you to submit a post of your own next month!

First up, Diana L Guerrero presents Pro or Con Cesar Millan? posted at Ark Animal Answers. What can we learn from Cesar Millan? And is it worthwhile to even debate about him and his controversial TV show? This post (as well as some of the comments) brings up some really interesting points to consider, no matter how you feel about Cesar Millan.

Eileen Murphy presents Growling is Good! posted at Companions Training Blog. Why do our dogs growl and what does this mean? Eileen writes a great article about how to address growling and why we should never punish a growling dog.

Eric Goebelbecker presents How can I get my dog to calm down? Continued….. posted at Dog Spelled Forward. This is a great article about how we can teach our dogs certain behaviors to help them calm down. Check it out, it also includes a very cute video. I love how dogs trained with positive methods always seem to be wagging their tails!

KD presents Training my Horse like a Dog posted at The Trick Ponies of Chincoteague. Minnow, one of Kyley’s trick Chincoteague ponies, has been working on his rear. This great post shares some neat video footage of the training process, as well as some interesting information about how Kyley is training this behavior.

Jane Jackson presents Punishers and Reinforcers posted at Bookends Farm. This informative posts contains some great information about punishment, with some good examples of how we need to look at actual behavior before calling something a punisher (or reinforcer). Jane also does a great job discussing what to do about horses that nip, something that most horse people have to deal with at one time or another.

Robert D. Jones presents Best Dog Crate Review: Had We Only Used a Dog Crate posted at Best Dog Crate Review. Should you use a dog crate? Robert shares a thoughtful post about how crate training would have been beneficial for his dog Bud.

Donald Summers presents Enrolling in Puppy Agility Classes posted at Edogadvice. Can puppies do agility? Why not? A puppy agility class is a great way to introduce your puppy to new situations and simple behaviors. Donald covers how to start teaching a few basic obstacles, as well as a trick you might want to avoid with a puppy!

Bonus blog post

Shawn Finch presents My Rat Wuzzy posted at Omaha.net – Local Writing from the Heartland. I usually try to be pretty strict about only accepting posts related to training. However, I loved this heartwarming story about a veterinarian’s love for her hairless rat. (And Wuzzy, the rat, does help train kids about science.)

I hope you enjoyed this edition of the clicker carnival. Join us next month for even more articles about positive training. To find out how to submit articles to the carnival as well as to check out the archives of past issues, check out this page.

Happy training!