{"id":5036,"date":"2019-01-01T12:19:36","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T11:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/?p=5036"},"modified":"2024-12-30T21:20:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T20:20:34","slug":"good-trainer-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/good-trainer-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Trainer Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How do you become a better animal trainer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s four quick tips (discussed in more detail <a href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/how-to-become-a-better-animal-trainer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>learn from many teachers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>learn from many individual animals<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>learn from several animal species<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>keep an open mind<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Another useful approach is to acquire overall <em>good trainer habits<\/em>. And in the video below (chapter 12 from the final module of my online course Advanced Animal Training) I discuss what I think are 30 such useful trainer habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not that the concepts are that terribly advanced, frankly &#8211; most of them are very useful to beginner trainers too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>When I first started planning this lesson I was originally thinking of discussing common trainer mistakes, but that would end up being a long list of<em> don\u2019t do this<\/em>, and <em>don\u2019t do that<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, rather than bring your attention to undesired behaviour I\u2019ll introduce some useful trainer habits, and explain why I think they\u2019re valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The do\u2019s rather than the don\u2019ts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/278428533?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"580\" height=\"435\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I realize I need to temper the statement that &#8220;the animal is always learning&#8221;. Strictly speaking, that&#8217;s not true &#8211; learning is not going on 24\/7 all throughout the animal&#8217;s life. However, I think it&#8217;s a useful mindset to have, and to behave <em>as if<\/em> each moment is a potential learning moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of my horse-savvy students, Natalie, made the following relevant comment regarding horses and other animals where \u201cstanding still\u201d carries immense value \u2013 they would be the exception to the \u201cfocus on movement first\u201d habit suggested here:&nbsp;&#8220;<em>With horses, all R+ trainers I have studied with start off with teaching a calm, non-SEEKING, standing-still behaviour first. They have various names for the same basic behaviour: Standing Still Facing Forward, Calm Default Stationing, \u2018Grownups are Talking\u2019 (this last one is from Alexandra Kurland). The reasoning (which I agree with) being that a horse is big and powerful and even a little bit of trial and error mugging of the human and her treat pouch can become dangerous. Second reason being that when there is misunderstanding, the horse will most likely revert to this very safe behaviour that has the biggest reinforcement history.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>So we first teach the horse to take food from the hand that comes to its muzzle, not to follow the hand but wait for the next pellet to magically arrive while they stay still. As I understand it the current thinking is that it is most error less to shape this from continuous feeding (ex. one hand refilling the other so the horse can keep eating, or simply eating from a feed pan) and gradually inserting milliseconds to eventually whole seconds of mini breaks without new food. Or if a start is made with marker + food, then it is done with protected contact so moving towards the trainer \/ treat pouch is not an option.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Of course the individual horse is taken into account, a too enthusiastic horse needs a strong foundation of this first (so that whenever he is in doubt he can fall back on this highly reinforced \u2018calm waiting\u2019 behaviour). With a shutdown horse (we might actually be happy if she started to mug us a little) we would quickly go to target training and not spend a long time on reinforcing standing still initially, but we still might need to teach it again later on.<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I published and discussed each and every one of these habits on my Facebook page &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pg\/illis.se\/photos\/?tab=album&amp;album_id=1821367161307703\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">head on over there<\/a> to check them out in more detail, and follow the individual discussions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Also, which useful habits have you acquired (and there are bound to be many that I&#8217;ve overlooked!) that&#8217;s helped you become a better animal trainer? Please let us know in the comment&#8217;s section!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several of my students asked for posters illustrating the different habits, so I prepared a pdf with all of them. Interested in a copy? Just <a href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/12\/Good-trainer-habits.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, acquiring good habits is not all there is to becoming a great animal trainer, but it&#8217;s a start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And as Zig Zigler once said: you don&#8217;t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>***<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interested in learning more? Check out the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/courses-menu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">available courses<\/a>, or grab a copy of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/e-book-keys\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">free e-book<\/a>&nbsp;covering some of the things I wish I had known when I first started training animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/e-book-keys\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"527\" height=\"716\" src=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/12\/Free-ebook-keys-training.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5021\" srcset=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/12\/Free-ebook-keys-training.png 527w, https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/12\/Free-ebook-keys-training-221x300.png 221w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 527px) 100vw, 527px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do you become a better animal trainer? Here&#8217;s four quick tips (discussed in more detail here): Another useful approach is to acquire overall good trainer habits. And in the video below (chapter 12 from the final module of my online course Advanced Animal Training) I discuss what I think are 30 such useful trainer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5036"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7799,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5036\/revisions\/7799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}