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What’s the best way to train an animal? What about the best way to teach a human to train an animal? How can we use the science of behavior and learning to develop better training practices? In this section you’ll find lots of articles and information about the science of animal training, research that has been done on animal learning and behavior, and information about teaching people.

Are you "training with a clicker?"

Are you “training with a clicker?”

Someone recently started a discussion on one of the horse clicker training yahoo groups about “clicker training” versus “training with a clicker.” Since I just posted an article about “What is clicker training?” I thought this discussion of “who is a clicker trainer?” was quite timely! So, what’s the difference? Some clicker trainers claim that […]

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What is clicker training? Read this article to learn all about this positive reinforcement based method for training dogs, horses, and other animals.

What is clicker training?

Have you heard about clicker training? Clicker training is one of the fastest growing training methods because people who try clicker training find that their animals love it. Clicker training is a reward based training system that uses a special signal to tell the animal “Yes! That’s right!” In this article, you’ll learn all about […]

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Can companies enforce safety without using punishment?

These are my notes from some of the lectures I attended at the 38th annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, which I attended in May. I attended a lecture by Cloyd Hyten which focused on the use of punishment by large businesses and corporations, especially when trying to enforce safety rules. Interestingly, […]

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agility training mary and ginger

Target, lure, or free-shape? Which is best?

These are my notes from the 2012 Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. Click here for more notes from this conference. 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 […]

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