Dogs, horses, and rats. Birds, goldfish, cats. Dolphins, raccoons, and elephants. What animals can’t we train? In this section you’ll find lots of great training stories and tips. You will also get to meet many of the wonderful animals that I get to train. I hope that you’ll enjoy reading about my adventures (and misadventures) and that these articles and tales can provide you with insight that will help you with your own animals.
Do you video your training sessions when you are working with your animals? Whether you are training a horse, dog, cat, or kangaroo, recording your training sessions is a great way to improve your training. You’ll see lots of details in the videos that you didn’t even realize were happening during the training session. It’s […]
This summer, two friends and I are taking Terry Ryan’s virtual chicken training workshop. I’ll share some of my notes from the workshop over the next handful of weeks. You can learn more about Terry’s workshops on her Legacy Canine website. Why train a chicken? Early in my animal training journey, I learned about Terry […]
This spring, as I teach my online shaping skills class, I’ve been thinking a lot about the decisions we make during shaping. I find that many trainers don’t know quite what to do when their animal is almost, but not quite, performing a desired behavior. For example, imagine you’re working with your animal on backing […]
I’ve been having a lot of fun recently working through Alexandra Kurland’s new “Getting Started with Clicker Training” virtual clinic. The name of this class is a bit deceptive, as it is designed for both beginner clicker trainers and those with more experience. One of my favorite sayings from Alexandra Kurland is that “advanced training […]
This past weekend, I gave a mini PORTL workshop at All Fur Fun, a dog training facility in Addison, Texas. (What is PORTL?) We spent part of the workshop talking about reinforcement delivery. Reinforcement delivery is a really important, but often overlooked, piece of training. Small changes in how, when, and where you deliver a […]
When trying to address “problem” behaviors, most people look for ideas based on the appearance of the unwanted behavior. For example, if the person’s dog jumps on people, the person may ask, “How do I teach my dog not to jump on people?” However, behaviors that look the same may be happening for different reasons. […]
