Happy New Year! 2010. A new year. A new decade! January is a great time to think about goals and aspirations for the upcoming year. What do you plan to do with your animals this year? Any training goals or tasks that you’d really like to start or perfect this year? Or, maybe you’re planning […]
Ginger and I have been working on Doggie Zen, which is an exercise from Sue Ailsby’s training levels. Doggie Zen is a leave it type exercise. At the early stages, you teach the dog to ignore and leave alone a piece of food in your open hand. Later on, this evolves into more complicated exercises, […]
These are some of my favorite posts from 2009. I’ve picked a few of the ones I enjoyed writing the most, as well as some of your favorites–posts that got the most views and the most comments. Let me know if I’ve left any of your favorites off the list! If you are a newer […]
Do you blog about positive animal training? Submit your favorite blog post from December to the January edition of the Clicker Carnival, the only blog carnival specifically for positive animal trainers. All submissions related to positive training are welcome, from personal training stories, to how-to articles and videos, to product and book reviews. Read more […]
I recently finished reading Irene Pepperburg’s most recent book, Alex and Me. When Irene Pepperburg first started working with Alex, many people scoffed and laughed at her. Parrots were thought of as “bird brains.” While it might be possible to teach them to repeat back answers to simple questions, the bird wasn’t actually “thinking” or […]
One of the most common arguments I often hear against clicker training for horses is that we “can’t use dog training methods for horses.” However, clicker training wasn’t originally invented for dogs (or dolphins either, as many people falsely claim). The principle of reinforcement, on which clicker training is based, was originally described and researched […]
