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.
Flower is one of my young rats. I’ve only done a bit of clicker training with her, but she’s a smart girl and a quick learner! This is her latest trick — she had previously learned how to go through a tunnel, so we decided to make it a bit harder. Now, the tunnel starts […]
These are my notes from the 6th Art and Science of Animal Training Conference, held in March 2014 at the University of North Texas. Visit this page for more conference notes. Ken Ramirez’s presentation centered around different strategies and approaches for working with more than one animal at a time. I thought this was a […]
I recently watched an awesome hour-long lecture by animal trainer Ken Ramirez that is available to view for free on YouTube. If you’re not familiar with Ken Ramirez, he’s the head trainer at the Shedd aquarium in Chicago. He’s been a professional trainer for several decades and has trained hundreds of animals and dozens of […]
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday This is little Mocha, a four and a half month old Catahoula puppy. The Catahoula leopard dog is the state dog of Louisiana. Mocha has been hanging out with me recently and participating in our Lodge and Train program at Pappy’s Pet Lodge. Besides being 100% adorable, Mocha’s also one smart little puppy. […]
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday Henry, my little foster dog, has been working on making new friends. Here’s a great photo I captured of Henry and Emily. Henry met Emily at the end of last week and warmed up to her pretty fast! Right before I took this photo, He jumped up into her lap to get some […]
In addition to making new friends, Henry and I have been working on basic obedience behaviors, including sit, down, eye contact, come, go to bed (go into his crate), and more. Henry’s a fast learner and seems to enjoy the training! This past week, we started working on down. This actually was very difficult for […]
