I mentioned in a recent post that I should share again the story of my learning to ski. It’s a great example of contrasting traditional instruction versus TAGteach and the resulting… results. It’s also kinda humorous, because it features me tumbling tail over teakettle down a snowy slope more than a few times, and that’s never not funny. Enjoy! Continue reading
I had a great idea for a training advertisement, all seasonal and humorous. And I had a great photographer to hand. To shoot it, however, we’d need to take a crazy, fractious dog who had been trained to polite house manners and make her look again like a stereotypical “bad dog.”
It was a ton of fun. Continue reading
Do you want reliable trained behaviors? Do you want your learner to enjoy the experience and crave more learning? Borrow some ideas from the best. Continue reading
I am continuing to find more help in my professional life for my personal life, such as for increasing my physical fitness. There are all kinds of behavioral principles at work here! What’s working for me right now? Continue reading
One of the toughest things about being a behavior professional is that one doesn’t have many excuses. When I do something stupid, I can easily identify it and the triggers (if any) and a way to avoid it the next time by choosing an alternate behavior instead. That doesn’t mean I will, but it means I can, and then I can feel a bit stupid again for failing to choose the better behavior.
It also means I know better than to feel bad about a past decision instead of simply focusing on new behavior. But, y’know, the cycle repeats.
Right now, though, I’m applying my professional knowledge with good results, and I’m blogging here to keep up my motivation and, maybe, help someone else do something similar!
Like many dog owners, I’ve gotten spoiled by having a mature, well-trained dog in the house. Naturally, when we first bring home a new member of the family, we are obsessed with teaching all sorts of critical foundation skills (targeting, door and leash manners, handling exercises, and so on). But once those initial behaviors are in place, we give them little thought because we’re too busy focusing on performance behaviors, or working skills, or the next cute pet trick — whatever our particular venue may be.
What this means is that once I’ve taught my dog the way I need her to comport herself in the house, I get lazy. I do things I would never think of doing with a novice dog. And fortunately, our style of training holds up brilliantly in real-life situations — which, as a matter of fact, is why I still have the load of groceries I bought tonight.
(In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, today’s post is in that vernacular. Tomorrow will show a translated edition.)
I have seen some criticize clicker trainin’ as impersonal and artificial — what do you mean, I’m not ‘posed t’ talk t’ me dog? He’s s’posed t’ work for food instead o’ me? Hands-off? I’m not s’posed t’ touch me own dog?!
Of course this be a skewed view at best, and occasionally out-starboard wrong, but it can be propagated by well-intentioned but confoundin’ directions from some clicker-ers. Let’s clear the decks! Continue reading
In Indiana, our calendar has months like the rest of the world, but they’re called January, February, Mud, Tornadoes, Welcome Race Fans, June, July… The month known as April in other places is characterized here by severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, which is not only murder on dogs with thunder phobias (like my Valenzia), but means that occasionally, you might need a rubber raft to get to the mailbox.
Continue reading
I have a confession to make. Brace yourselves.
I am a professional trainer, and my dogs aren’t perfect. Continue reading
I was crumpling old newspaper into the fireplace when a familiar graphic caught my eye. I glanced down and noticed the phrase, “the appeal… it doesn’t punish.”
I immediately pulled the page out of the fire and blew it out. What can I say? I’m a behavior junkie.
The article (I will provide a link, rather than the charred fragment) was a Wall Street Journal piece about the incredibly popular mobile game Angry Birds. Continue reading