Did you know that ALL animals can be trained? In this section, you’ll find stories and articles about training birds, goldfish, cats, dolphins, zoo animals, and more. We can learn a lot by training other species and by studying trainers who work with animals that we are not very familiar with.
Okay, as usual, this is going to an an almost Wordless Wednesday post! I’ve been chatting some with Linda, who works at Zooworld in Panama City Beach, Florida. In the picture above she is working on target training (using clicker training) with one of the zoo’s young giraffes. I’ve written before about why training is […]
Happy Friday! I hope you’ve been enjoying the notes that I have been posting from ORCA’s recent Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. I have one talk left to post — notes from Steve White’s talk. If you’ve missed any of them, my notes from this year’s conference (as well as from past conferences) […]
This is part one of my notes from ORCA’s 2013 Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. For links to the rest of my notes (which will be posted over the next few weeks),please visit the Conference and Clinic Notes section of my site. Phung Luu has been training animals for over two decades and […]
My friend Aimee, who blogs over at mymegaedog, does herding training with her German shepherd dog Shelby. She trains all her dogs using positive reinforcement. Unfortunately, most herding trainers still use pretty aversive training methods, including lots of punishment and other tactics designed to scare, force, and intimidate the dogs. Even more unfortunate, as Aimee […]
Last spring, I spent a very fun day at the Dallas Zoo. My professor and advisor, Jesus Rosales-Ruiz, spoke at a weekly lunch lecture series the zoo has for their staff, sharing information about some of his research on poisoned cues. I wrote most of this post then, but never got around to completely finishing […]
Have you seen Lili Chin’s latest poster? It’s inspired by this great quote from Ted Turner (behaviorist and head trainer at Sea World): “If you can teach a whale to pee in a cup, you can train your dog without punishment.” The illustration features twelve great examples of wild animals who have been trained to […]
