Zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, sea world, nature centers, personal pets, we encounter animals around us all the time. Many of the wild animals we encounter today (especially in zoos and aquariums) are bred in captivity, rather than collected from the wild. Animals have a host of needs that must be met in captivity. If the […]
Tag Archives | lads before the wind
Stimulus Control and the Do Nots
As I’ve talked about before, cues are powerful only if we can get them under stimulus control. (What is stimulus control?) The animal must be able to distinguish between a variety of different cues, know which behavior goes with which cue and know not to perform the behaviors unless the cue is given. I’ve […]
Training Tips: Improving Cues with Limited Holds
How do we increase response time to our cues and requests? Say we ask our dog to sit. The dog sits, but she takes her time and waits several seconds before sitting. We can reduce the time interval between when the cue is given and when the animal responds by using what is called a […]
Shaping Recipes
Many positive trainers are fond of of saying that an animal can be taught to do anything it is physically and mentally capable of doing. Behaviors are often taught through shaping–using successive approximations towards a final goal. (For instance, a trainer could teach a horse to put it’s nose in a trailer, then put two […]
Going Back to Kindergarten
I’ve been reading Karen Pryor’s first book on training, Lads Before the Wind. Written in the 70s, it’s her personal account of how she learned the principles of operant conditioning and positive reinforcement training by training dolphins in Hawaii. Her park was one of the first to do this, and the book is filled with […]