What’s the best way to train an animal? What about the best way to teach a human to train an animal? How can we use the science of behavior and learning to develop better training practices? In this section you’ll find lots of articles and information about the science of animal training, research that has been done on animal learning and behavior, and information about teaching people.
As some of you know, I serve as the president for the Art and Science of Animal Training. In addition to organizing the annual ASAT conference, I take care of all of the behind-the-scenes administrative duties, including managing the website, answering emails, and paying the bills. Even though nonprofits don’t pay taxes, they still […]
At the end of September, Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz and I gave a two-day PORTL shaping workshop in San Diego. We had an awesome group of participants, and it was a really great weekend. Emily Larlham, who hosted the workshop, posted a video with some highlights from the event. (In the photo to the right, Emily’s […]
I got an email reminder yesterday about this weekend’s Equiosity webinar. This reminded me that I still hadn’t posted my thoughts from the March webinar! For the March webinar, Alexandra Kurland and Dominique Day invited Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz to join them for a discussion about schedules of reinforcement. This can often be a rather dry topic, […]
Recently, my friend Cindy sent me a great video from agility dog trainer Susan Garrett. The video shows Susan shaping two of her dogs to jump on a cooler. Both dogs are eight-year-old border collies owned by Susan. Both dogs are pretty smart pups with an extensive history of training. However, the second dog learns […]
Last week, I wrote about how I learn the names of the students in my undergraduate class. This week, I’d like to share some thoughts with you about how my students learn my name. This may seem like it should be pretty easy for the students. However, for some of my students, I’ve realized that […]
Every semester, I have somewhere between 30-50 students in the undergraduate course that I teach. That’s a lot of names to learn! I’m not good at learning names. I’ll get “Mike”and “Mark” mixed up. Or, I won’t be able to keep straight the two students who always sit together. And never mind the student who […]
