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Revised February 2023 – original written in 2016 .

Recently there was a video post in my Facebook feed that caught my attention.

Typically, on Facebook, I’m a bit of a lurker. I’m not very active, and when I do watch videos I often don’t share, like or comment – even when perhaps I should.

This time, I watched, feeling my jaw gradually dropping in disbelief, and then I actually left a comment.

I wrote:

“I’m speechless”.

And that was it.

I know, kinda lame.

But I didn’t have time for an essay, and then I was flooded by the rest of the FB flow, so the film slipped to the back of my mind – where it’s been festering.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I was speechless. But in the time that’s gone by, I’ve realized that I should do the opposite.

I should speak up.

Continue reading “20 problems with punishment in animal training”

Revised May 2024.

There are two important question to ask before teaching an animal a new skill.

In another blog post, I discussed the first question, one that is extremely basic but often overlooked: “what is the cost/benefit of the behaviour?” Is it useful, useless, abuse or an ethical dilemma?

Once a behaviour has been found to be useful, it’s time to consider how to best go about teaching it.

And this brings us to the second question.

Which is the best technique to teach the animal how to perform a new skill?

You know the old saying “All roads lead to Rome”..?

With regards to animal training, the same is true. There are many ways to teach animals what you want them to do.

Many ways to “get” behaviour, as it were.

Continue reading “7 ways to get behaviour”

Updated December 2023

When planning to teach an animal to carry out any new response, there are two questions to ask before even getting started.

• What is the cost/benefit of teaching the behaviour? Should it even be taught in the first place?
• If so, how should it be taught?

Let’s look at the first of those two questions, as it will help decide whether a behaviour should be trained at all, and identify potential situations where we simply shouldn’t bother.

Oh, and I address the question of how to chose the best training method in this blog post.

Training new behaviour could in some cases cause suffering to the animal.

Continue reading “The cost/benefit of animal training”

Revised August 2024

Are you ready for a challenge?

Find the yellow umbrella.

We can learn something from every single person.

That’s a conviction that I have.

My challenge to you is to try to find that something in every single pet owner or animal professional that you meet.

What animal-related piece of knowledge can you gain from that person?

Find the yellow umbrella. The nugget of wisdom that will change how you interact with animals.

Ignore the other, black umbrellas: the ideas, techniques and explanations that don’t fit your paradigm. And here’s the challenge: though you might find these black umbrellas appalling – the task in this exercise is to ignore them rather than allow them to flip your lid.

Rather, pick and choose that which resonates with you. What you find might be an animal-related technique, a piece of knowledge, or merely an idea that you can mold to fit your own framework.

I try to approach animal trainers from all camps with an open heart and mind, knowing that they all have some insight that will help me improve my understanding of the world in general, and animals in particular.

So, which nugget of knowledge do I find with the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan?

Continue reading “What can we learn from Cesar Millan?”

I’m almost done giving my first online course!

I wanted to share some of the course content here on my blog, and choosing was difficult.

So, I got some help from my students. I asked them:

“Out of the course videos you’ve seen so far, which do you like the best? One that taught you something important that you think the rest of the world of pet owners or animal professionals would benefit from?”

Several students suggested chapter 11 from the GRIEF module entitled Poisoned Environments. So – here it is!

Continue reading “Poisoned environments”

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had influences from two directions that have caused me to consider the age at which dogs are separated from their litter and mom.

Continue reading “Are dogs separated from mom too early?”