Shawna

Creative training: From dolphins to equines

The Online Equine Clicker Training Conference ended recently. I’ll be sharing some of my reflections about the conference presentations on my blog over the next few weeks. The conference featured three weeks of fascinating lectures about clicker training horses and other equine. You can still sign up if you’d like, the presentations will be available […]

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summer weave poles

Finding new reinforcers

I’m working on a project right now about reinforcers. (More on this soon in an upcoming post!) So, as a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about reinforcement, reinforcers, and the different types of things trainers use during training to reward behavior. Many horse clicker trainers primarily use food during training to reinforce correct behavior. […]

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Amusement parks and cold war spies

There's a great article in the most recent Smithsonian Magazine about Bob Bailey and Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE). Many animal trainers are familiar with Bob Bailey because of the operant conditioning workshops that he teaches with chickens. However, Bob Bailey first became interested in animal behavior and training in the 1950s and spent decades training […]

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Barrel racing for dogs

Here’s a fun video from dog trainer Donna Hill. In the video, you’ll see some of the steps she used to teach her dog to run a barrel racing pattern. The video shows the individual component behaviors that Donna taught first and then illustrates how she used back chaining to create the final behavior. Watch […]

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